Lightroom's SECRET sky masking trick

The Select Sky mask in Adobe Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw is fantastic, especially for landscape photography. Sometimes though, it needs a helping hand. Here's a trick I learned that helps Lightroom make more accurate sky masks, plus additional masking tips.
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Adobe Lightroom Classic (free trial for macOS and Windows)
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📕 CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:51 Adding sky mask
2:38 Better sky mask
4:20 Masking foreground
5:17 Adding and subtracting objects
7:00 Even better mask
8:37 Outro
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[@danielforster719]

I have been very frustrated with the sky selection in LR, and this is brilliant. Thanks for figuring out how to get a good sky selection and sharing it!

[@dtravisphd]

Select Sky bleeds into the foreground (at low opacity) to prevent haloes appearing at the sky/foreground border. Ironically, although your hack seems to give a more precise selection of the sky, it may also cause haloes to appear at the border (especially with extreme adjustments).

[@ihateunicorns867]

I always thought that Lightroom's selection of reflected sky was deliberate, because if you change the hue or lightness or whatever of the sky, you'd also want to reflected sky to take on those changes.

[@jonathanngricourt9344]

Damn, thanks!!

[@cmichaelhaugh8517]

I’ve been finding more and more non-obvious tricks to masking. This has been very helpful. Thanks!

[@dandan1364]

Impressive video. Thank you.

[@Veeremets]

Weeeeery nice trick

[@vadimgouida]

It was a second video with better sky mask that I watched today. I meant - select sky, remove sky and inverse. I tried this method on a few files and it produced select sky results worse that just select sky.

[@user-rp2xx3gw6c]

Very helpful video, Todd. Thanks for creating it.

[@dominey]

Glad it was helpful!

[@geofffield7805]

I'm guessing that when LR selects the sky it is analysing the whole image to identify the sky and mask it, but when you subtract the sky from the sky mask, it's only analysing the sky mask and the foreground areas into which it has bled. This might enable the AI analysis to be more targeted and subtract the sky more accurately. Anyway - it's a fascinating discovery and many thanks for making this video. Masks are amazing tools and there is so much to learn and discover!

[@ralphpayne6259]

Wow, thank you for thinking outside the box (well, okay the mask😁). Liked and now subscribing.

[@user-vs2wl3md1c]

Holly crap. You just solved so many editing problems with Lightroom making.. Awesomeness X 10

[@SebastianMoreno82]

Todd what a cool discovery there, i will go ahead and test it next time I'm editing my shots

[@MsOnce4all]

One of the best Lightroom tips I've viewed. Thank you, Todd!

[@emkay2903]

Thanks for this great tip. This is the best result that I’ve found on YT.

[@stanleyjacobson2617]

Very intriguing and very helpful.......just wondering how you discovered that subtract the sky from the sky?????

[@claude8199]

Really great tricks. Thanks

[@jonasweiss5817]

Intersect with Sky works, too.

[@PMCN53]

This mini tutorial is fantastic! Thanks 👍🏻

[@sarahbatsford4791]

Super helpful, thank you.

[@craigianmenzies]

Ok, going to have to try this out.

[@ZombieRofl]

Lightroom Classic is such a powerful and fast editor. I wish the competition will have these features.

[@Fessoid]

ACDSee 2024 is most comparable to LR, very fast and fine-organized digital assets manager. Also it has a 'Photoshop' - like enviroment just build in 'Lightroom' without opening another app.

[@hansverleysen7394]

Great tutorial

[@sejalgpatelphoto]

Great video Toddd

[@chaosinthematrix]

Very cool - thanks.

[@mahoutie]

Well, that's a bit odd. But it works! Thanks Todd.

[@mikaelwerner1]

Brilliant!

[@eyeammjh]

What a hack! Thank you for sharing

[@timotrilk5000]

I don't even use Lightroom, but clicked on the video anyways and brooooo. This example image is just borderline the best fu***in image I have ever seen. Holy damn. Keep the good work up!

[@girardjeremie1939]

You're a genius! Thank you so much! I have to say that I laughed very loud when you substracted the sky from the sky and I saw the result!

[@PhreddCrintt]

You have answered my prayer! Thank you SO much Todd! I have been looking for such a process for so long now!

[@stewartlogie]

Excellent tips!

[@jmgcg]

It is very helpful. Thank you

[@johndwilliams]

Once again, you’ve shown us a little known tool with amazing results. I’ve tried it myself and what a difference to accurate masking!

[@i.m.5621]

Great and really helpfull.

[@lukasz3D]

What a great tips. Thank you.

[@kif411]

🤯mind blown, thanks for the tip and technique tutorial

[@michelattieh4346]

Incredibly helpful!!!

[@nevvanclarke9225]

The theory, because I do a lot of landscape photography as well. If you look at the light, when you are out shooting and say those rocks were there, there would be a fair bit of what I call refracted light from the sky onto the rocks. Now sometimes I will just except the Sky mask initially and edit it as what I say however then what I do is do I subtract but then what I do is subtract the subject icon and then you can just use areas on those rocks as a subtraction. it’s a little bit similar to what you did, but it works quite well 99% of the time. This is an interesting hack.

[@tobization]

Well done. Keep up the good work!

[@browniepinoy]

Thanks for the tips and tricks

[@gashead2]

Brilliant thanks

[@SebastianBevanPhotography]

Ideal, cheers for that Todd

[@stuartvh4562]

This is so cool, Todd, thanks for sharing!

[@MCGreenofly]

Great tricks Todd, Thanks!

[@peterebel7899]

What a great trick!

[@HBadger89]

Very, very cool. Thank you!

[@osbornecropfield4058]

Great tips - as always; thx. for sharing.

[@niallfeatherstone]

Some great tips, I love using masks and this has gave me more ideas for playing around with them!

[@colinmelhuish1254]

That was so helpful. So well thought out. Thanks for posting. (subscribed)

[@34Media]

very handy cheers Todd appreciate it

[@markham56]

Brilliant! I will use these techniques tomorrow!

[@ghpatriot]

You da man!

[@jimgrantham6139]

Great work Todd

[@mustangshelby2740]

Excellent tutorial .. good trick you had was the duplicate of the mask then perform another mask . I often add on extra mask on the same mask but it becomes a mess and damage the previous mask . Good job and really enjoyed it . Very simple task and straight to the sample .

[@KimberlyGJones]

Wow! This is fantastic! Thank you for sharing this.

[@danielrao3120]

Excellent! Extremely helpful. Thank you.

[@tomatengarage5608]

Oh yes, this Video is helpful. I wasn't aware of the chance to "subtract the sky from itself in order to get a perfect selection of the sky". Sounds weird, but the result is convincing! Thanks for this Clip! Thumbs up!

[@franksudhoelter2890]

This tutorial is very helpful. Thank you🙏

[@wizard6207]

Fantastic. At last the problem solved. Thank you Todd. 👍

[@jmodwyer1]

Great insight - I was using the brush to fix my masks, but this gives me a whole new option.

[@jeffmichaels2672]

Nice 👍

[@1973Antoniob]

In less than 10 min you have explain very well how working the masks in Lr. Others are selling hours of on line course to explain that. Many thanks.

[@ytwadk]

Very helpful tutorial. Thanks for sharing.

[@karimlahlou132]

Hello thkxxx for this video....insane

[@liverpoolpictorial]

Thanks, Todd. This is genius. Subscribed.

[@BubblesPothowari]

Defies Logic but WORKS !!! Thank you indeed.

[@thomasammann7157]

Very nice hack! Would have never thought of trying this 😀

[@wasatchpowder]

Great presentation skills. I learned something new. thanks.

[@natelett]

This was really interesting and helpful! I haven't played around with the Intersect tool, that's definitely one I need to experiment with more. Thanks!

[@J5388T]

This is a brilliant tip, thanks! I've tried it out on a few files since watching this video and its far superior to the method I was using to intersect colour/ luminance or another sky selection with the initial sky selection.

[@pdel7007]

I'm learning LR there is so much to learn !

[@PowellGuide]

Fantastic tutorial. Very well explained. You have a new sub.

[@luisjg2628]

Hello.¡ Thank you very much for your advice and classes, they are very interesting and useful. 👍👍

[@gianmariozucconi3242]

Great Todd!! It's nice to discover interesting and very useful details in the post. Lightroom is becoming more and more mature every day and sufficient to handle 90% of my images;-)

[@tonymckeage1028]

Great Video Todd, I've been using the select sky mask in camera raw since it was introduced, The more subtle masking i haven't been doing so i will work on that, thanks for sharing

[@joshkaiser]

Great tips Todd. Especially the subtracting sky from the sky hack. What made you think to try that?

[@rgarlinyc]

Very clever! I think you're guess is right - that Adobe's AI calcs differ between creating and subtracting from a mask... I shall certainly employ this trick - Thanks a ton!

[@JohnDoe-ws5iv]

Awesome video!!!

[@ScotTheGr8]

WOW!!!

[@antonvamplew]

Thanks for the great and concise tutorial! My only question is: where in the US (I’m guessing) is that wonderful landscape?

[@michaelmillward8006]

Thatd a brilliant solution, although it probably is the case that the sky mask does this deliberately. Ive been frustrated by the way it currently works but actually applying the correction to the "inaccurate" selection often works very well .

[@user-of8ju6ky9e]

Why do content creators insist on calling things secret. Its really stupid, they are not secret, they are simply functions of a product.

[@dandan1364]

Lightroom developers never anticipated the necessity of click bait titles to drive monetization. I’m just thankful it wasn’t “shocking Lightroom secrets Adobe doesn’t want you to know…”

[@jackgenewtf]

He got you to click though...

[@user-of8ju6ky9e]

@@jackgenewtf nah just came to comment.

[@dumblicker7024]

​@@user-of8ju6ky9e you commenting got him a view tho😅

[@haies09]

Credit to Brian Matiash for this finding

[@PaulAmicucci]

Whta the hell - that's is brilliant, curious why this works.

[@rajeshmuthuswamy7339]

Thank you for a great video. A question , when I use brush extensively then I see that the system takes a long time to update and apply the changes , any suggestion on how to speed up

[@iqueque]

Do you have a technique to eliminate the halo that often accompanies sky selection?

Subtract sky from sky... Very interesting, but I would be very careful. As you said, it sounds like a hack. It means that when you open the same file under LrC one eg. year later, this hack will not work and our beautiful photo will look strange because changed shape of mask.

[@PracticingPhotography]

Sweeeeeet

[@chriscard6544]

is it intended or a glitch ? at least it's a genius idea to substract sky from sky and see

[@srinivasaniyengar3433]

I don't see this happening. When I subtract the sky from the sky in my picture, it subtracted the mountain tops as well, so there was no advantage.

[@philmtx3fr]

It s just brilliant !! But at the same time it seems really that lightroom AI is not so clever and even bugged. When you see what Luminar can do for replacing the skies it just shows the way of improvement Adobe gets on this area. But with their lucrative monthly redevenue I am sure they will have the budget to improve that. But in the mean time thx for your tricks !!

[@gashead2]

Can’t get this to work for me

[@randyschwager2515]

Very helpful information! Thanks for sharing!

[@TomatenDK]

invert, select, invert, subtract, re-select, invert etc etc etc etc Waaaayyy too complicated video for us beginners :O

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

The AI Whisperer Channel? Well hacked and demonstrated.

[@steveh1273]

Intersect the sky with the inaccurate sky mask works, less steps.

[@philadler9171]

Brian Matiash figured this out a year ago. Nice that this guy stole the idea for his own channel