Material based on Lightroom Classic 11 specially for Radozhiva prepared Alexander Onishchenko (facebook).
Fig. 01
Hello everyone, I'm with you Alexander Onishchenko.
In the publication “Refreshing mask / selection tools in Lightroom and Photoshop”I described the concept of updating the selection / masking tools, and visualized three possible interactions between selections: Add, Subtract and Intersect.
Today we will take a closer look at the interface and capabilities of the new tools, focusing on Color Range and Luminance Range.
You can call the masking tools either with the mouse through the Masks panel, or by pressing the shortkeys highlighted in Fig. 02. This method is noticeably faster.
Fig. 02
The Masks panel opens by default in the upper right corner of the preview area. Double-clicking on the top of the window (highlighted with red arrows) brings it to the right panel of Lightroom under histogram... A second double click returns to the preview area. In addition, the Masks panel can be moved with the mouse to any part of the preview area:
Fig. 03
I have mentioned three possible types of interactions between secretions. But only two are visible in the Mask panel: Add and Subtract. To access the third - Intersect (intersection), press the Alt key:
Fig. 04
Clicking on the three-point icon in the PNU of the Masks panel opens access to the visualization parameters of the created masks:
Fig. 05
The first 6 positions set the rendering mode of the created selection. It can also be set using the drop-down list in the LNU of the Lightroom window. Rice. 06 illustrates all available options. Now you can choose a convenient and visual mode for almost any image:
Fig. 06
The color and intensity of the backlight in the Color Overlay and Color Overlay on B&W modes can be easily overridden:
Fig. 07
Flexibility and customization provide Lightroom's high performance with selections.
Now let's move on to a detailed description of the Color Range and Luminance Range tools. They are used to select parts of the image that have a certain brightness (Luminance Range), or a certain color (Color Range).
Animated slide 08 illustrates working with the Luminance Range tool. For those who know Photoshop well and know how to adjust the blend mode (Blend if), everything will be obvious. For the rest I will explain, but I will do it not on a real image, which distracts attention, but on a brightness gradient from black to white (Fig. 08). For convenience, its frames are numbered from 1 to 7:
As soon as the tool is activated, a window with its parameters (highlighted in red) appears in the right panel of Lightroom. This is a scale of brightness (from 0 to 100%), limited to the left and right by double sliders (frame 2). If we need to select a range of brightness, starting, say, from 22%, move the left slider to the right (frame 3). Now let's limit the lights too: exclude from the selection the brightness, greater than 61%. To do this, move the right slider to the left (frame 4). Now we have a selected range of brightness from 22% to 61%. and the boundaries of the selection are sharp. As a rule, such sharp edges cause artifacts to appear in the image, so they should be blurred.
This is done by separating the doubled sliders, as shown in frame 5. In addition, the resulting selection, specified by the configuration of the sliders, can be blended along the gray scale, while the configuration is preserved (frame 6).
The created selection can be additionally highlighted with a red fill by setting the “Show Luminance Map” checkbox (frame 7). The backlight is displayed both on the scale and on the image:
Fig. 08
The Color Range tool allows you to select fragments in a frame that have shades of a given color (animated slide 09, frames are numbered from 1 to 4). As in the case of Luminance Range, after activating Color Range, a window with its parameters appears on the right panel of Lightroom (highlighted in red), but now there is only one Refine slider. The cursor then becomes an eyedropper.
You can set Lightroom shades for selection either by clicking the eyedropper on the image (frame 2), or by selecting a rectangular area with the left mouse button pressed. In this case, Lightroom will average the color in the selection.
By moving the Refine slider to the left, you can narrow the range of selected shades (frame 3). Moving the slider to the right will expand the range of shades (frame 4):
Fig. 09
Both tools allow you to invert the resulting selection by checking the “Invert” checkbox.
Two other new tools, Select Subject (object selection) and Select Sky (selection of the sky), I will not describe, because they are fully automatic.
Here are some examples of how the new selection tools work together. I have already described the changes in the concealment concept itself, so I will remind you only briefly. Now all 8 selection tools can work both independently and in a group, refining the results of each other.
Animated slide 10 (frames 01 to 10) shows an example of a sky selection that has a complex border with the roofs of Prague in the area of Charles Bridge. The sky is not blue enough (frame 01), so you need to highlight it to correct the color. Launch the Select Sky automatic tool (frame 02). It creates a nice selection of the sky (frame 03), but it is not accurate enough. In addition to the sky, fragments of buildings and, what is especially bad, part of the groom's face remained partially highlighted. If the selection is not finalized, when adding blue, both the buildings and the face will turn blue, which is unacceptable.
The main difference between the sky in this shot is its high brightness. Therefore, to refine the selection, we will use the Luminance Range tool. With its help, we subtract from the already created everything that is darker than the sky. Let's set the Subtract mode by pressing the corresponding button (frame 04), select the Luminance Range tool (frame 05) and select the brightness range from 0 to 72% (frame 06). The selection of the sky has improved markedly, with only a few small defects, marked with red arrows.
Set the subtract mode again to Subtract (frame 7), select Brush (brush, frame 8), and remove the defects with two mouse clicks (frame 09). Frame 10 shows the already corrected sky:
Fig. 10
In fig. 11 (frames 1 - 10) demonstrates getting the selection of the girl's face. The main tool is Color Range (frames 2, 3). It can be seen that the selection by color captures a lot of unnecessary things. We will refine it using the Intersect with the Select Subject (frames 4, 5, 6). After that, there was excess discharge on the girl's hair and jacket. We'll do the final refinement with a Brush through Subtract (frames 7, 8, 9, 10):
Fig. 11
The Color Range tool rarely gives a sufficiently accurate selection, but sometimes such frames do occur. The frame in Fig. 12 (frames 1 - 6) taken at the Porsche show in Berlin. The car is sharply different in color from the slightly chromatic environment. But even in this case, the initial selection with the Color Range tool (frames 2, 3) grabbed the reflection of the car in the mirror (this is good), and the walls that are slightly warm from the backlighting (this is bad). With a brush in Subtract mode, remove the extra selection, leaving only the car itself, its reflection in the mirror (on the left) and faint highlights on the floor at the bottom of the image (frames 3, 4, 5, 6):
Fig. 12
Summary
- The updated masking / selection tools have a flexible interface that allows you to work quickly and efficiently.
- The presence of 8 selection tools that can work both individually and in a group (with three types of interaction) almost always allows you to get a high-quality result, avoiding painstaking precise work with your hands.
- To improve the efficiency of creating selections, you should learn to think in the categories Add (addition), Subtract (subtract) and Intersect (intersect) selections created with separate tools. This will take some time.
- Adobe still has something to strive for. For example, I sorely miss the Controlled Blur feature of the Select Subject tool. The way it has been done in Photoshop for a long time.
Good shots to you, friends!
You will find more materials from readers of Radozhiva here.
Alexander, there is a question: is it possible to adjust the automatic selection (of an object or an area of the sky)? The algorithm often captures unnecessary or underestimates what is needed, and these flaws are visible with a magnified view. Do I need to create an additional mask and play with subtraction, addition or difference, is there an option in the finished Mask to add or remove ??? Thanks in advance. Nikolay
Dear Alexander, my heartfelt gratitude for the excellent article! I read it with pleasure, especially about “intersect” - it’s a must-have for rkzhim! Your illustrations are made by the hand of a master and bring aesthetic pleasure (of course, in addition to their direct function). I would add in your article how you can cancel the wrong step in the whole mask and inside the mask - this is an important question and, as far as I know, has more than one solution. What conclusion can be drawn from reading your work? Better to take pictures than to enhance photos on a computer. Although the last step is indispensable!
Good evening! I can't figure out where to get the classic brush functions for smoothing the skin, whitening teeth, and so on. Is it now missing in the program?