The latest update to Adobe Lightroom Classic — released late October during Adobe MAX — introduced some new local adjustment tools, including the new Masking panel. You can now choose Select Subject or Select Sky. These do exactly what you think they do, selecting the subject or sky for you.

I decided to see how it would do with a low light image. Or two.

Night photo taken in the Nevada desert. I used Lightroom V11's new masking and local adjustment tools to make a lot of the selections when post-processing this photo. This included Select Subject and Select Sky, which performed admirably.
Night photo taken in the Nevada desert. I used Lightroom’s new masking and local adjustment tools to make a lot of the selections when post-processing this photo. This included Select Subject and Select Sky, which performed admirably.

Testing the local adjustment tools on a low light image

I loaded a photograph of a car that was light painted during the exposure. In the Develop module, I selected the new Masking icon, which is a circle with a dotted line around it. Instantly, I could tell that the local adjustment choices had changed. Now we can select even more methods of targeting a specific set of parameters: Select Subject, Select Sky, Brush, Linear Gradient, Color Range, Luminance Range and Depth Range. 

In Lightroom's Develop Mode, I selected the Mask Function to access these different selection tools.
In Lightroom’s Develop mode, I selected the Masks function to access these different selection tools.

Furthermore, you can create new masks. You could with previous versions of Lightroom, but I feel that this layout makes it more intuitive. You can also rename the masks, as I have done in the example.

Today, I’ll explore the first two methods of selection.

Select Subject

After pressing Select Subject, Lightroom V11 automatically created this mask using AI. I've renamed this first mask "Car".
After pressing Select Subject, Lightroom automatically created this mask using AI. I’ve renamed this first mask “Car.”

After I pressed Select Subject, Lightroom almost immediately selected the car. If it had not selected the car correctly, I would have been able to use the brush tool to add or subtract from its selection. This is provided in the Masks menu.

Furthermore, Lightroom retained my settings from a previous edit. If I wanted a similar starting point for, say, texture or sharpen, this would literally be a single click and I would be finished.

Select Sky

After pressing Select Sky, Lightroom V11 automatically created this mask using AI. I've renamed this first mask "Night Sky".
After pressing Select Sky, Lightroom automatically created this mask using AI. I’ve renamed this first mask “Night Sky.”

Next, I wanted to select the sky. Sometimes, especially for a low ISO night image such as this, all I need to do is reduce the amount of noise by a small amount. If the sky is bright, I might want to reduce the exposure or dehaze or increase the contrast a little.

The targeted area has already been selected, so it’s just a matter of adjusting the parameters to your liking. 

Local adjustment tools

Local adjustment tools in Lightroom's Mask Section.
Local adjustment tools in Lightroom’s Mask section.

As before, the local adjustments include most of the parameters that you would want to use to adjust a specific area. Whether cooling or warming the temperature, lowering or raising the exposure, or anything else, any of this can be applied non-destructively. In other words, if you come back the next day and decide that you wish to adjust something more, you may.

A more challenging selection

My second attempt with selecting the subject. After pressing Select Subject, Lightroom V11 automatically created this mask using AI. I've renamed this first mask "Radio telescope".
My second attempt with selecting the subject. After pressing Select Subject, Lightroom automatically created this mask using AI. I’ve renamed this first mask “Radio telescope.”

A car was one thing. What about an odd-shaped object that might be somewhat darker, sitting in front of a Milky Way sky?

As you can see, no problem. After pressing Select Subject, the radio telescope was instantly selected. If you look closely, you can see that it did select some of the sky. near the bottom of the dish. If you wanted, you could take away some of the selection by using a brush and selecting Subtract. Even if the selection is not exactly what you want, it still saves a lot of time compared to before.

Mask selection in a very dark sky with trees

Masking a more complicated dark scene with a tree in Lightroom.
Masking a more complicated dark scene with a tree in Lightroom.

For my final effort, I tried a very dark Milky Way scene with a dark foreground. And if that weren’t enough, I chose one with a tree. As you can see, the is still reasonably accurate, although if you zoom in, the mask, albeit a faded one, does include some of the trees and the distant mountains.

Still, though, this was accurate enough that I could brighten the sky if I wanted to and the tree and mountains stayed dark.

Brightening the sky to show an example of how Lightroom's mask has separated the sky from the rest of the scene remarkably well.
Brightening the sky to show an example of how Lightroom’s mask has separated the sky from the rest of the scene remarkably well.
The beautiful Owens Valley in California.
The beautiful Owens Valley in California.

Thoughts so far

This will probably give people less reason to use some of the masking features in Photoshop, thus saving time. The masking isn’t as potentially sophisticated or specific as Photoshop can be. However, for many applications, it’s more than enough. And it’s quick and easy to use.

We’ve just covered Select Subject and Select Sky and mentioned using the Brush to add or subtract from the mask selection. However, there are many more masks to explore with Linear Gradient, Color Range, Luminance Range and Depth Range.