Intersect Lightroom Masks

Lightroom Masks

From the early days of Lightroom to today, it has changed in many substantive ways. The relatively new masking and associated adjustments are among the most useful tools. Just about two years ago, I wrote a similar article describing how we could incorporate curve adjustments in Lightroom masks. As I then said, curve adjustments made it to Lightroom a few months after that article.

The following masking tools also work in
Adobe Camera Raw if you are not a Lightroom user.

New Ways of Refining Masks

Using the now unavoidable AI, Adobe has added ways of selecting various elements in an image. From Select Sky to Luminance Range; from Select Subject to Select Objects, there are many ways to make selections. Additionally, they have added ways of refining the masks one of which is to Intersect a mask with another kind of mask. I will explore this tool in this article.

Intersecting Masks

Many times, selecting one way may include too much of the image. Intersecting a mask with another way of masking will help confine the selection to where both conditions are met.

In the lead image comparison, if I wanted to change the car color from red to blue. Selection by the color range and picking a few spots from the car would include too many other similar tones in the image. Likewise, the Select Subject option would cover parts that are not red. Below is the original image, along with two masking options. Note that in the Select Subject option, the “A-not-so-I” probably guessed Marilyn Monroe was the driver and included her in the selection! We’ll deal with that later.

Click on the images to see them larger, uncropped, and read their titles.

But the intersection of the two would include just the red part of the car. At least, that’s the idea! To have the intersected selection, follow a few simple steps:

• Start by creating a mask based on a color range; in this case red
• Click on the three dots next to the mask and choose the Intersect Mask With, then choose the Select Subject option
• The result will be the red parts of the car plus Marilyn Monroe
• Now we can apply the color shift that will distort Monroe and a little tag on the license plate. For this, I used the Hue slider in the color block and moved it all the way to the right
• The next step is to select the mask, then click on the button that says “Subtract” and choose “Brush” as the option
• Remove the mask with your brush from Monroe above the windshield and through it
• If there are some parts not included and still show as red, select the color range mask, look on the right panel to find a slider “Refine,” and move it further to the right until those reddish spots turn blue

Here are the sequential images showing the operation to its conclusion:

Refine Select Sky

The “Select Sky” mask invariably spills into the adjacent areas resulting in the adjustments spilling into them. There are other ways of correcting the spillover, like subtracting with a brush, but that is often tedious, and even impossibly difficult.

We can use the intersecting masks to eliminate or, at least, minimize the spillover. The process is quite simple:

• Create a mask by using “Select Sky”
• Intersect the mask with “Color Range” and click on the blue sky
• The spills will be mostly wiped out

The images below show how the Select Sky masking includes parts of the pole, most of the steel wires, parts of the parked car, and the edge of the parking level. When intersected with the color range of the sky, those areas are subtracted from the mask. The mask overlay color is red which is easy to see on the concrete base of the pole, the pole itself, and the car. You can select the color range mask and use the “Refine” panel slider to tweak the mask if needed.

The following image comparison may better show the amount of cleaning the intersecting can do. Move the center slider to the right and left to see the mask before (on the left) and after (on the right) intersecting the sky mask with the color range.

This article scratches the surface of refining the masks in Lightroom. I have successfully used various masking options in combination with others to create highly selective masks. Give it a try. After all, Lightroom edits are nondestructive.