This Lightroom MASKING HACK will BLOW YOUR MIND!

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Hey, hope you could learn something new from this video! If you want to support this channel, maybe you want to become a member? :-) www.youtube.com/@ThePhlogPhotography/join or become a Patreon www.patreon.com/phlog

[@cmichaelhaugh8517]

Nice trick. I’ve been improving the mask by selecting the sky twice, but this looks better.

[@bab008]

The sky mask trick works with birds feathers for birds in flight. Great tip!

[@MarkMetternichPhotographyLLC]

This technique works great for images that are small, for social media or inly printed small. But it can create a ton of problems for big enlargements! Nothing can give us the finesse and precision like the superior, masks and Photoshop. The best way to approach it is to bring in a raw layer into Photoshop. Duplicated by choosing “new smart object via a copy”. And then using the extremely superior Photoshop masking.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

I agree, Photoshop masking is way, way, way more precise, especially when working with luminosity masks to target very specific things. However, those are also way more complex and for quick adjustments like in this case I think its fine to just the quicker and simpler lightroom masks. So far, I didnt have much problems even with bigger images, BUT it also depends on the kind of area you're masking here

[@alanrenton6059]

Great timing, just trying to edit a similar picture and these techniques will really overcome the masking problems I was experiencing.

[@spd23racer]

I love how you leave the sky on all your pictures, very moody and bold contrast💯

[@i.m.5621]

Thanks for another great video. The masking trick is great as well as the subtle brightening of the horizon. It's almost unbelievable how interesting and sensitive and can modify a rather boring image and achieve a natural result.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Very happy you like it, thanks a lot!

[@gizmophoto3577]

I’m looking forward to applying this mask technique. I’ve had success in some images by careful use of luminosity masking, and I think the combination will be quite helpful.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thanks for the comment! Applying a lot of masks can get confusing at some point. It gets better with more expereience

[@toddwynia7491]

Great technique and great results! Thanks!

[@bosiefoobar]

that was really smooth, thank you very much

[@thanosbistolas6903]

This is interesting Christian, thanks. I find though that intersecting the sky mask with the sky gives a very good result and in fact you could intetsect the mask once more with the sky for even more precision.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

NO WAY! I didn't know that, thanks for pointing this out!

[@frankaldous4053]

Brilliant, I had this issue with a tower being included with the sky… now I can isolate it perfectly… THANK YOU 👌👌👌

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thats great to hras, thanks for commenting! This method works great with architecture stuff in the image!

[@nancyforehand8281]

Great tutorial. Looking forward to trying this technique on my own images. Thanks so much, Christian.

[@jimmywest1]

This was really awesome, Christian! Well done mate.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thank you!

[@Dolbz102]

Amazing Christian

[@scandinavianthinking1251]

Christian, Thank you so much for your wonderful presentation of masking hack! The sky is getting beautifully glowing in the horizon area. This is definitely mind blowing! Your brilliant explanation inspire me.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thank you so much!

[@Nasruddin.61]

Hi, I came to your channel by chance, and then intrigued by the themes and clarity of presentation of your tutorials: I plan to follow you on the channel with interest and pleasure, in the common passion for landscape photography... greetings. Massimo (Italy)

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Hope you will find a few interessting videos here, thank you very much!

[@colinjones8656]

Really enjoying your content regarding the use of masks, what a transformation. I'm still trying to my head around the use of intersects and where/how to apply them and somehow lose it halfway through the edit. Thank you.

[@EricGross]

Brilliant teaching video and masterful editing.

[@ericpecquerie4868]

Great processing. Vérifie inspiring. And I will remember the sky selection trick I hope. What do you think of cropping your image square to focus more on the group of trees?

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thanks for the comment! I think square would work too, but its just a personal thing, I'm not a fan of those square images :-)

[@liorcaspi9]

Hi Christian. I love your channel. Just wanted to comment that you can have the same result with less clicks by intersecting the sky with sky instead of subtract -> invert.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Hey, thanks for pointing this out, this will make things faster for sure!

[@rgarlinyc]

Very clever, thanks a lot!

[@Artoffrozentime]

You are so helpful! Thanks!

[@Daniel_Zalman]

Surprising that the a7III has that much noise in the sky at ISO 800. Also, something that worked for me with this image was adding the two prominent color ranges of the sky in addition to the initial sky selection and playing with the refine color to get it more precise.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

I dont think the noise is too bad, but its visible when looking for it :-)

[@The_CGA]

It’s about a stop to a stop and a half under for minimum noise, but my experience with Sony RAW files is there’s more color depth to work with when something is in the mid tones or shadows. (Necessary for using the clarity, vibrance, dehaze activity in this edit) DX0 scrubs out noise if it’s super important…for a dark landscape like this there’s plenty of grain and noise from mk 1 eyeball so 🤷‍♂️

[@Daniel_Zalman]

@@The_CGAI mean for printing purposes, it won't be very noticeable. I was just talking from a pixel-peeping perspective. I thought that modern BSI-CMOS Full Frame sensors would be almost noiseless till the 800-1200 level at the pixel level (with noise reduction at default levels in LR). Yeah, I agree about SONY files. They're very flexible (for lack of a better term). #nerd #firstworldproblems

[@stevenanthony578]

Tried this on my tablet with Lr (not Lr-C) and subtracting the sky mask from the sky mast didn't work. So, what I did, just before making a sky mask, was to decrease Blacks and Shadows all the way and increased contrast all the way. Then I made the sky mask. Then went back to the whole image and put contrast, blacks and shadows back to 0. Seemed to work well.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thanks for the comment! I actually dont know if chaning the tonal values like increasing contrast affects the ai masks in such a way that they have an easier time targeting the sky. I think I'm going to give it a try right now

[@UbzUnclemax]

Haven't tried on this image yet, but I think subtracting an "Objects mask" would work best here.

[@bab008]

Great tips!

[@bn5055]

The new masking tools in LR are great. Now I just want to be able to blend 2 exposures with them so I don't need to do luminosity masking in Ps at all.

[@ugurongel3066]

thank you great job

[@DynastyUK]

Guess what, you can subtract the same mask multiple times and make it even more precise. :)

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Just saw another comment mentioning this, didnt know that until now. Cant wait to test it out later on! :-)

[@DynastyUK]

@@ThePhlogPhotography just be careful, sometimes it subtracts a little too much.

[@maxbiho]

great!!

[@garyaweiner]

Thanks!

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thank you so much for the support, that means a lot to me!

[@MichaelWDietrich]

Probably given credits to Brian who discovered this trick first (or at least publisghed it frist on yt) should be a routine and good habit.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Who is Brian? I saw this trick in one of Signature.Edits videos and I gave credit in the video and in the description.

[@MichaelWDietrich]

​@@ThePhlogPhotographyYeti, I told SE before that is not worth going taking the credit, when he did not find it himself, but Brian did.

[@brianmatiash]

Thank you for looking out for me, Michael! Christian, that SE video linked in your description does show my channel in the beginning and sort of gives credit, but it’s kind of messed up that he didn’t link to my channel directly in his description. 🧐 Oh well. Your channel is fantastic, regardless!

[@johnclarke1319]

I got confused from the get go when you mentioned classic ( ergo original?) and then talked about AI). Is there any way to use this without an interfering AI presence on line? I use Lightroom 6, and can't find these masks. I don't want a nosey on line AI anywhere near my life.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

No, you do need the sky selection (AI) mask to do this. You could do it in Lightroom with luminositiy masks (or sky selection) but its mroe time consuming and a little more complex

[@timpaynephotography5914]

i really like the final but this is too many steps when your in a hurry

[@thomasjohansson8494]

Hi! Do anyone know a way to set the profile "Adobe standard" to default instead of "Adobe colour" in lightroom?

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thats a good question, never thought about changing the default profile

[@perpardorf1040]

Backflash

[@carlosandreviana9448]

It's a mistake to do that "trick" because some blending is necessary between the sky and the trees