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Masking and Retouching

Lesson 25 from: Editing and Organizing your Photography in Lightroom

Jared Platt

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Lesson Info

25. Masking and Retouching

<b>In this lesson you will learn the power of making masks and how to combine those masks together to select pretty much anything you want to work on in your photo in seconds.&#160; You will realize how little you really need photoshop.</b>
Next Lesson: Range Masks

Lesson Info

Masking and Retouching

1 Okay, let's talk more about 2 the process of adjusting an image, 3 especially the process of masking and retouching. 4 So if we are going to do some more masking and adjusting, 5 the first thing that we have to remember 6 is that when we adjust one image, 7 we can take and steal all of those settings 8 from that image and paste them 9 on a bunch of images after it. 10 So I'm gonna do that now simply by, 11 this is an image we worked on earlier. 12 We like the image, 13 I like the way it looks. 14 I like the CP tone that we came up with. 15 And so what I'm going to do is I'm going 16 to hit Command + C for copy, 17 or I could come down here to the bottom 18 and click on this Copy Edit Settings. 19 And if I click Copy Edit Settings, 20 then when I go and highlight all of these images 21 and Shift + Click to the next, 22 so I'm Shift + Clicking between this image and this image. 23 And then I can click on this Paste Edit Settings. 24 And now all of these images are getting those setti...

ngs. 25 So as I go through 'em, 26 you'll see that they're slowly adjusting. 27 There we go. 28 So it's just slowly doing all of these. 29 There we go. 30 Got all of our images all set up. 31 Perfect. 32 Oh, that last one needs to be finished. 33 So it's working on it. there we go. 34 Okay. 35 So now that we have all of our images adjusted the same way, 36 which is much easier on a portrait session, I admit, 37 than if you're out traveling around 38 and taking pictures in random places, 39 or you're at a wedding and taking a bunch of pictures 40 that are changing constantly. 41 A portrait session is much easier 42 to get all of the adjustments to be exactly the same. 43 But once we've done the basic adjustments 44 and we've got 'em across all the images, 45 we may want to do more work with the masking tool. 46 And I showed you some masking 47 on some non-people type images. 48 But now we're gonna do a little bit of masking 49 on a portrait. 50 So I'm gonna go over to the masking option here 51 and you'll notice that it detected me as a person. 52 And if I click on that and choose that as a mask, 53 then I have some options. 54 I can use the entire person as a mask, 55 or I can choose individual pieces of that person. 56 So most of the time I will choose facial skin, 57 body skin, and lips. 58 Those three things are the things 59 that you might necessarily want to soften the skin on. 60 Now you'll notice that that mask 61 has created everything except for my beard, 62 and that's because facial hair is also a part of that mask. 63 I'm gonna choose facial hair too, 64 just so that we get the entire skin involved. 65 I don't necessarily need to do anything specific to this. 66 I'm just showing that we can select an entire person 67 and we can just use their skin, 68 leaving their eyes open, 69 leaving their eyebrows open, 70 leaving their clothing alone. 71 And then I can hit Create. 72 And now I've got a mask of just me, 73 not my clothes, 74 where I can go in and play around with. 75 And I'm gonna zoom in, 76 not that far. 77 I'm gonna zoom into there 78 and I can start playing around with how bright my face is. 79 So I could brighten up my face. 80 Or maybe what I wanna do is bring the highlights down 81 just a tad and bring the shadows up just 82 a little bit like that. 83 So I'm filling in, 84 I'm maybe adding a fill flash or something in there. 85 And I can also go to the Effects area 86 and watch what happens when I bring the texture down. 87 See that? That looks pretty nice. 88 And it didn't do anything too damaging to the beard, 89 so that's fine. 90 So I just brought the texture down just a little bit 91 and maybe I'll bring the clarity back up 92 and that helps the beard. 93 So now I've got that done to this particular image. 94 Now, what I wanna do is I want to go in and I wanna copy, 95 but instead of copying all of the settings, 96 'cause maybe I did adjustments on the other images 97 that weren't exactly the same as the adjustments 98 on this image, 99 but I want to then soften the skin across all of the images. 100 So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to go to this image 101 and instead of paste settings, 102 I've gotta go in here and click on this little X 103 so that we're back to Copy Edit Settings. 104 And I'm going to click on the gearbox. 105 When I do that, 106 it's gonna ask me what do I wanna copy? 107 And in this case, I'm going to say none. 108 And then I'm going to go to the masking option, 109 which is here in the middle, 110 and I can drop that down 111 and see there's only one mask involved. 112 But if there were more masks, 113 I could add those masks as well. 114 And I'm gonna click on that mask and I'm gonna say copy. 115 And now I'm gonna again highlight all of these 116 and hit the Paste button. 117 It's only gonna paste the mask. 118 That's it. 119 And when I hit Merge, 120 it's gonna merge that with all of the other settings. 121 And it's going to, 122 right now it's looking for me on each image. 123 No matter where I moved, 124 it's gonna find me, 125 it's gonna find my skin, 126 and it's going to create that mask and smooth my skin. 127 That's a fantastic way to do a whole bunch of editing 128 on one photo and then have it apply 129 to a bunch of other photos. 130 So now as I go through each individual image, 131 no matter which image I look at, 132 if I go to the masking area, 133 you can see there's the mask. 134 And then let's go to this image, 135 there's the mask. 136 So it does a perfect job at getting the mask 137 on every single image. 138 It's great, all done. 139 That's all it took to do a mask. 140 And we have the ability to use a lot of different masks. 141 So this is another thing that you could do, 142 watch this. 143 So if I wanted to kind of create a darker vignette 144 on the background, 145 so it looked like maybe that there was a light 146 on the background on the backdrop. 147 So I want it to be darker on the edges of the backdrop 148 and then lighter in the center, 149 what I can do is come in here, again, 150 I'm on this first image and I'm gonna create a new mask 151 and I'm going to do a radial gradient. 152 And I'll just draw 153 that radial gradient right there behind me. 154 So we'll do it right about there. 155 And then what I want to do is I want to invert that. 156 So I'm gonna go to the mask, 157 click on the triple dot, 158 and I'm gonna invert that gradient. 159 So now it's affecting the outside. 160 And then I'm gonna take that amount down, or sorry, 161 not the amount. 162 I'm gonna go to the light area 163 and I'm gonna take the exposure down on that area 164 and I need to expand that feather out a little bit, 165 or actually maybe I need to just bring this out, 166 make this a little bit bigger. 167 There we go. 168 Okay. 169 And maybe take the black down a little bit there. 170 So you can see how it's darker on the outside 171 and it's lighter right in the middle. 172 But the problem is 173 it's also darkening me. 174 I'm gonna click on the Subtract button 175 and then I can choose one of these options again. 176 And I'm just gonna choose subject, 177 'cause I'm the subject of the photograph 178 and it's going to cut me out. 179 So here we go. 180 Just click on subject. 181 And now here's the radial gradient. 182 There's the subject, that's the two of them together. 183 So now I'm not getting darkened by that vignette, 184 just kind of the background is getting darkened. 185 And if I wanted to, 186 I could also remove from this front area. 187 I could remove that by simply clicking on Subtract Object 188 and then just go in and say, 189 this is my object that I wanna subtract. 190 There it goes. 191 Now that's subtracted. 192 So here's the radio gradient, 193 there's the subject, 194 there's the object, 195 and that's the total mask. 196 But I kind of don't actually like it being that bright now. 197 So I'm gonna go back to this subject 198 and I can click on any of these particular parts 199 of the total mask, 200 and I can go in and just click on the triple dots 201 and delete this specific area. 202 And there we go. 203 So now we have a radial gradient, the object, 204 oh, that's not what I wanted. 205 I wanted the subject, I wanted the object removed, 206 so I click on the triple dot button, delete the object. 207 There we go. 208 So I just undid what I did, and then I started over again. 209 So radial gradient is there, 210 subject is there. 211 That's the combination of the mask. 212 And so now anything that I do, see that? 213 It doesn't involve me, 214 it just involves the background and that stool, 215 or the the trunk that I'm sitting on. 216 So that actually works out quite nicely. 217 And then we would just follow the same method, 218 Copy those settings from the second mask, paste them, 219 and voila. 220 So, this is how we are able to accomplish 221 a whole bunch of images really quickly, 222 even when it comes to smoothing skin, 223 creating burns and dodges, bringing a sky in. 224 All of that kind of stuff is available 225 because we have the option of AI doing the mask for us. 226 Now let me show you in this masking option, 227 when I click on the Plus Mask, 228 anything that you see that has a dotted line around it. 229 So subject, sky, background, people, objects, 230 those are all AI-driven masks. 231 So those are the things that require some extra help 232 from your com. 233 Now, if your computer's not attached to the cloud, 234 it will do the work with the computer 235 and with the program that exists on your computer. 236 But if you're attached to the cloud, 237 then it will actually draw a little help 238 from the cloud as well. 239 So it's kind of a combination of what's in the computer 240 and the program and also what's up in the cloud 241 that can help assist it with the billions of photos 242 that are up there. 243 And the two together do a much better job. 244 But if you happen to be offline, 245 you can still do it. 246 It's just not as good a job as what it could do 247 with the help of the mothership.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials

Adaptive_JP_LR_Presets.zip
Jared_Platt_-_Editing_and_Organizing_Photography_in_Lightroom_Photo_Examples.zip

Ratings and Reviews

Tim Byrne
 

Great job, Jared! You have delivered a master class for anyone beginning a journey into Lightroom, presented in absolutely clear and relaxed style. And for those with more experience with the program, every old dog can learn a few more new tricks. Teaching software is tough. Jared does it by breaking down each function and including not only the what, but the how and why as well. And each step is amplified by crystal clear photos which are manipulated with the function at hand. Bring a pad of paper, some snacks, and a cup (or two) of coffee. He is relentless in his presentation. You might watch this course as a freebie, but buy it to be able to refer to it for specific steps and processes. I've been using Adobe products since the mid 1990s and this is the best instructional presentation I've taken. ABSOLUTE WINNER1 Thanks, Jared

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