Adobe just packed a bunch of useful features in to the latest (June 2022) update to Lightroom (and Adobe Camera Raw). A couple of those updates center around the Masking tools and some much needed features that everyone wanted. Plus there is a great new feature when it comes to using presets too. Enjoy!
Matt’s Lightroom Masking Course: https://mattk.com/lightroom-masking
Adobe’s What’s New Page: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/whats-new.html
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Matt, I am seeing other videos on the new features, especially inside the Adobe Max conference going on right now. One thing I’ve seen is adaptive presets inside the development module of Lightroom. This is a panel of presets on the right side menu. I can’t find anything like them in Lightroom Classic. Am I missing something?
Hi Ed. Yes they’re in the Presets panel on the left in LR Classic. Check out my latest videos on the blog as well for more info on the new features.
How to get the upgrade?
Hi… you’ll want to Contact topaz.
Thank you for the informative video. Excited to try out the new features.
Great summary of the changes!
Now Lightroom is easier to use for adjustments with masking together with my collection of 600 presets I have and using special Editors lightroom keyboard. I have never used photoshop on any of my images I begin to wonder if learning Photoshop is needed and worth learning
Thanks Matt for this crystal clear explanation of these new masking features> I have shot a sequence of Osprey BIF shots and obviously the bird is in different poses and positions in the frame. When I paste my selection of either the sky or the duplicate-inverted selection of the bird from one image to the next the copied selection does not auto update and appears as a ghost of the selection from the original image. Am I missing something? Thanks
Hi Paul. If you’re sure you’ve updated to 11.4 then all I can suggest is… 1) It just doesn’t work well with the photos you’ve chosen or… 2) There’s a glitch (unlikely).
In your instruction I think you are not being quite accurate. When you demonstrate how one can copy the mask setting and copy them to another image, you say that you are coping the mask. In the cases that you demonstrate this, you are actually copying and applying the “Select Sky” command which results in a sky mask, and not the actual mask itself. In your example, the sky masks in the image one (the original image you selected the sky in) and image two (the image you copied the mask to) are very different. In this case the command to select the sky is being copied and not the actual image one sky mask. This should be pointed out as this is not clear in how you describe what is going on.
Hi Charles. I said it exactly how it works and pretty much the same way you did. “Copy/Paste” are Adobe’s words in the LR interface. I think you’re getting caught up in semantics. Sure… everyone hears things different – but so far out of over 25,000 views nobody but you has had an issue. I hate to say “it’s you, not me”… but… 😉
Hi Matt, I follow both you and Blake so when I watched this lesson first (instead o f his ACR, I was; Ok, looks great. Then I read the comment From Charles that you replied to in this thread. I think you are right, it’s in the wording that Charles is getting very picky about. I had to go back and watch the lesson again and saw where your wording is different from what he wants to hear. You say when you paste the mask settings adobe has to recalculate for the new photo and then make a mask, which is a short way of saying what Charles wants to hear. Adobe is copying the select sky command and then applying that command to the new photo to make the new mask. By saying it how you did in the lesson it just makes it easier for most people to understand without going into the nuts and bolts of what is really happening, in other words- you say potato he says potatoes. It all means the same thing, so great job with what you teach and keep it up, there will always be people who will pick apart the way that you teach. If they don’t like how you teach maybe they should start their own teaching website, that way they can teach it the way they want to hear it.
Great explanation again. I noticed the update coming in and the major changes with your email following soon after. Great adjustments by Adobe and so great that you take the time to explain them over here.
Good explanation! Thanks! I’ve never used presets so this helped as well as explaining the mask tools
Great post, Matt. One thing you didnt make clear…can any mask (not just the AI ones) be copied between photos?
Hi Alex. Yes, copying/pasting mask (AKA local adjustments) has always been there since Lightroom 3. Thanks.
Outstanding!
Matt, really appreciate all that you do to help users with their Adobe products.
One thing I would like to see added in the masking tools, along with the Radial and Linear tools is a Rectangular tool.
Thanks,
Grant Crawford
Thanks for the update, Matt. It’s definitely good news.
Matt,
As usual you are right on top of these powerful changes to Lightroom.
Thanks so much for providing so much FREE learning for photographers. By the way… your HIGH-VALUE (not free) courses are the BEST.
Thanks again.
Art
Thanks Art!
The amount slider being exposed at all times when applying a mask is a great improvement IMHO. I’ve been using this slider to tweak my adjustments for quite sometime. I’m sure others will find this easier access to the amount slider a game changer. Thanks again for your video, always informative and more importantly very applicable….. THANKS!!!!
Great. Any way to feather a subject selection in LR?
Nope.
Thanks Matt, for your excellent review of these significant improvements to LR! As always, you are not only first to provide a walk-through of upgrades, but you do so in a manner that is easily understandable and extremely helpful.
Been wondering when this video was coming. Good stuff, Matt. Much more understandable than Adobe’s instructions which I found to be confusing. Thanks for getting me straight.
Thank you Matt, I always appreciate your reviews of the changes Adobe makes in LR and/or PS.
Thank you Matt. Excellent review as always. We appreciate you!
Matt,
When new features are added to Lightroom or Photoshop, your website and You Tube channel are the first places I look to learn how to apply them to my personal workflow.
The new updates are very timely for me. Next Saturday is an annual bicycle ride fundraiser for a local nationally prominent cancer research and treatment institute. This will be my 11th year as a volunteer photographer capturing images of the riders which I need to edit quickly.
The institute and sponsors get all of my out of camera images to use for publicity.
I upload images edited to print at 4 by 6 to a website where riders can select and download images to print at home.
I edit in Lightroom in what I call conveyer belt mode. The advancements since last year should let me pump out more 4 by 6 edits more easily.
I need to rename each edited image to include rider team and number, so I hope that future Lightroom updates will make that easier.
On the 16th, I updated to the newest version only to discover that Lightroom was now grindingly slow and ponderous! One brush stroke, and the “spinning wheel of death” would spin and spin, another brush stroke and the same thing. Literally, Lightroom was absolutely unusable! Yes, I went to Google and discovered a host of disgruntled users experiencing the same slowdown effect. In desperation, I rolled back to the previous version and once again, Lightroom was quick and functional. I would appreciate any observations or assistance. The new features are amazing and I would love to make use of them but I can’t update and return to the slowest processing I have ever experienced.
Many thanks Matt. Another helpful tutorial.
Thanks, I agree with you, some nice additions.
I didn’t even know that you could do masking in light room thank you so much.
Thanks Matt. Always informative. I really enjoy your style of teaching.
I would like to have printed version of some of your courses.
Hi George. They are not available. in print. Thanks.
Thanks Matt, succinct and informative as always. Excellent release!
thanks for the info
Great video and nice upgrade to LR. Love your shirt by the way.
Thanks Matt! Your demonstrations make Adobe’s text clear and of course, your demonstrations give practical insights for application to my photographs.
2 questions Matt – 1st will you be updating your presets so it uses the new feature? 2nd are there similar changes to masking in Photoshop CC?
Hi Ed…
1) Possibly. Haven’t fully figured out what this will entail yet.
2) Yep!
Great introduction to the new update. I just got back from the Optic Conference in New York, myself, and haven’t had a chance to crack open LR to be aware of this update. So, thanks getting me up to speed just in time to edit my photos from NYC, and it was a pleasure finally meeting you in person there. 😀
Thanks Dee. Glad it helped and very nice meeting you as well. It was a really nice event to get to talk to people without a million other things going on. Take care!
I know NOTHING about masks and how to use them….any help?
Hi Karen. I mentioned two resources in the video. One in the middle and one toward the end.
Here’s a free video: https://mattk.com/the-biggest-change-to-lightroom-ever/
And my course: https://mattk.com/lightroom-masking
Hope that helps.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the update on LrC Masks. I do have your course on the Oct release of Masking, which really got me up to speed. Will you be adding the new updates to this course?
Thanks,
Dennis
Hi Dennis. I’m not sure. But honestly, just watch this video. There’s nothing more to know 🙂 Thanks!
Whenever I get news of LR updates, I always go to your site first. You explain away any worry I may have had and bring your easy method of teaching to enlighten me.
So grateful for your course last fall – I could jump right into new masking. This is just great stuff. Exciting. But when will they “organize” the custom settings in the masking tool. I love your presets but have to scroll and scroll. Surely there is a way to put them into folders so I can go right to Matt’s folder. New stuff always coming, hope this might be next!
Thanks, Matt – knew you’d make it easy to understand and use!
Hi Mary. Thanks and I’m glad you enjoy the course. Unfortunately there is no way to organize those presets in folders. Hopefully Adobe changes this in the future but I wouldn’t hold your breath 🙂
No mention of being able to use gaussian or any other type of blur for the background when you invert to background. Currently you need to use several other tools that don’t come close to get the desired effect.
Hi Chris. This feature has never existed in LR so there’s not really anything to mention right? And honestly I hope it doesn’t. 9 out of 10 photos I see artificially blurred in Photoshop look fake. It’s a very hard thing to pull off realistically.
Matt, thank you for the information and your opinions and perspectives of the changes. Much appreciated.
Thanks for this Matt! This is an awesome update! Time to go play with some photos! 😀
Thanks for the update! Btw.. what’s on your T-shirt?… “Call me old fashioned”?
You’re welcome! It’s a picture of the old fashioned drink 🙂
Great overview, thanks, Matt!
Thanks for another great video Matt. Will you be doing a tutorial on the new video editing feature in Lightroom?
Hi. I will not be. Trust me, you don’t want me teaching you about video editing and it’s in the cloud version of LR which very few people who follow me use 🙂
Thank you so much, very useful explanation! ?
Excellent as always! One thing I always do with bird shots is to Select Subject and then Subtract Sky. This cleans up the edges around talons and tail feathers and the like and makes the selection much more precise so that, for example, opening the shadows on the subject doesn’t leave light spots between the tail feathers.
Always look forward to your videos, thank you!
“Duplicate and Invert Mask” … YYEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!