Category Archives: Masking

Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop | June 2022

 The latest updates to Camera Raw (14.4), Lightroom Classic (11.4) and Lightroom Desktop (5.4) have been released to customers. These updates include new camera and lens support, and bug fixes. There are also new features and performance enhancements in each of the applications. I’ve summarised below what I consider to be the highlights. However, more details on new features and enhancements can be found by clicking on the ‘What’s New’ menu option in the ‘Help’ menu of each application.

Masking Updates

All three applications benefit from a number of usability enhancements to the masking feature, although as of this release, not all have made their way into Lightroom Desktop.

Mask Invert (Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop)

With these latest updates, we now have the ability to invert a whole mask, not only a component. The command for inverting masks can be found under the three-dot menu for the mask you want to invert.

Batch Update of AI Masks (Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop)

The ability to update ‘Subject’ and ‘Sky’ masks on multiple images at once is now supported.

  • An option for ‘Update All’ masks has been added in the Masking panel. This can be accessed by opening the Masking panel on an image which has missing masks.
  • Also, for the images with missing masks, we can select all of the images, then use ‘Settings > Update AI Masks’ option in the Develop module to update Subject/Sky masks.
  • An indicator will be shown under Histogram in Develop Module when the current image has any AI Masks missing.

The following lists the supported and unsupported workflows available when batch updating images with AI masks.

Supported workflows:

  • Copy and Paste
  • Auto Sync Settings
  • Previous (in the Develop module)
  • Sync settings
  • Presets

Unsupported workflows:

  • Applying Develop Preset during Import
  • Raw Default

In both these cases, the ‘Update AI Masks’ on the imported images can be used to update the masks.

Mask Amount Slider (Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic)

Masks has been revamped to include an amount slider at the top of the Mask adjustment panel, above the other edit sliders. An important caveat regarding the Amount slider is that it does not change/update the individual sliders. Instead, it increases/reduces the intensity of the effect applied in the background. It’s also important to note that whilst an image that has been edited using the Mask Amount slider will share the same appearance as Camera Raw 14.4 and Lightroom Classic 11.4 when viewed in earlier versions, the slider itself will not be available.

Masking Badges (Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop)

A number of mask badges in the Masking Panel have been changed to make them more visible and their function more obvious. Badges have been positioned on the far left side of the masking panel to denote the operations for: Add, Subtract, Intersect and Invert. The badges to denote the mask type have been placed to the right of the operator badges.

Presets (Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop)

New Premium and Adaptive Presets

For those who use presets to enhance or personalise their images, Adobe have included 50 new Premium presets designed for videos, portraits and live concert photos. There are also  two sets of  ‘Adaptive Presets’, which with a single click will select the ‘Sky’ to create dramatic skies or ‘Subject’ to make your subject pop. All of the presets also include ‘live’ on-screen updates. So, we can just hover the  mouse over the presets to see a preview of the preset at work.

Preset Amount Slider

And if the new presets aren’t enough, an ‘Amount’ slider has been added to enable global fine-tuning of the preset settings.

For presets that support ‘amount’, the slider is enabled and defaults to value of 100. The minimum and maximum values of the slider are 0 and 200, respectively. The slider will be enabled for most Adobe-created presets including Premium Presets. However, the slider is only enabled for presets created in earlier versions if they have scalable settings. What are scalable settings?

Scalable settings:

  • White Balance (temperature & tint)
  • Exposure
  • Contrast
  • Highlights
  • Shadows
  • Whites
  • Blacks
  • Texture
  • Clarity
  • Dehaze
  • Curves (all curves)
  • Detail (sharpening amount, luminance noise reduction amount, color noise reduction amount)
  • Color Mixer (all sliders)
  • Color Grading (hue, saturation and luminance adjustments)
  • Effects (grain & vignette amount)

Non-scalable settings:

  • Camera Profiles (e.g. Adobe Color)
  • Convert to black-and-white
  • Detail (non-amount sliders, such as the Radius and Masking sliders)
  • Color Grading: Blending, Balance
  • Lens Corrections (LrC) / Optics (ACR)
  • Geometry
  • Effects (non-amount sliders, such as Size and Roughness of grain)
  • Calibration
  • Red-eye
  • Heal and Clone
  • Masking
  • Crop

The New and Update Preset dialog includes a new checkbox to indicate whether a preset should or should not support the ‘Amount’ slider. In Preset dialog, when the currently selected settings are scalable, then the Support Amount Slider checkbox will be enabled and checked by default. Otherwise, the checkbox will be disabled and unchecked.

Export (Lightroom Classic)

Lightroom Classic can now take advantage of the GPU when exporting images. However, as with GPU acceleration in Camera Raw, there are caveats as to whether a computer will be able to take advantage of the GPU when exporting. These caveats are related to the amount and type of memory available to the GPU:

  • If the GPU has dedicated VRAM of 8 GB and above, ‘Export’ will automatically utilise the GPU.
  • If the GPU has dedicated VRAM less than 8GB, you can enable GPU for ‘Export’ using ‘Custom’ option in ‘Use Graphic Processor’ located in Performance tab of Preference dialog. However, you are unlikely to see much, if any, improvement in export times. 
  • If the GPU uses shared memory (e.g. integrated graphic cards or Apple M1 unified memory), then the minimum requirement for export automatically taking advantage of the GPU is 16GB. Again, whilst it’s possible to force GPU support on computers with less shared memory, the improvement in export times will be small, and will require that the system makes significant use of swaps to disk/ssd.

I’ve included a screenshot below that shows the various options available for enabling GPU export support. Note that with only 4GB of VRAM on this particular computer, the GPU only supports limited acceleration, which means that acceleration will be minimal, if any.

You may well be asking what GPU acceleration on for exporting bulk images actually delivers.  I’ve used three Mac M1 based systems to demonstrate. The three Macs used were:

  • Mac mini 8-core M1 with 8-core GPU, 1TB internal SSD and 16GB of unified memory;
  • 16-inch MacBook Pro 10-core M1 Pro with 16-core GPU, 2 TB internal SSD and 32GB of unified memory; and
  • Mac Studio 20-core M1 Ultra with 48-core GPU, 1TB internal SSD and 64GB of unified memory.

I imported 1000 Canon EOS R5 files into Lightroom Classic 11.4, applied lens corrections, Auto Settings in the Basic panel and default sharpening. The Export settings panel was configured for full size, Quality ’100%’ JPEG and Standard sharpening. A 2TB Samsung T5 USB-C SSD was used for the original and saved files. Using the T5 meant that the likelihood of the faster SSDs in the M1 Pro and Ultra helping the  SSD read / write times would not occur.

The averaged results from 3 tests on each computer are shown graphically below.

As above shows, with GPU acceleration enabled on computers meeting the specified memory requirements, we can expect to see significant reductions in export times. In April, I published a Blog post using Camera Raw 14.3 comparing various M1 based Mac computers with an Intel based MacBook Pro here. This post provides more details on the approach I adopted in the above tests.

Note: the times shown in above graph are for Canon EOS R5 files. The export times for other camera models and vendors are very likely to differ.

Discarding Stale or Orphaned Previews (Lightroom Classic)

Preview Management has received some attention in this version by optimising the algorithms used to identify stale and orphaned previews. With this change, LrC delete all the orphaned previews (previews of images that are removed from catalog or no longer exist) and stale previews (previews which are no longer in use) from <Catalog Name> Previews.lrdata.

Crop and Info Overlays (Lightroom Classic)

Lightroom Classic now includes a ‘Crop Overlay’ for ‘Fifths’ in the Develop module (Tools > Crop Guide Overlay > Fifths). Additionally, we can now choose to have different ‘Info Overlays’ in Library and Develop modules.

In-App Feedback & Ai Red Eye Removal (Lightroom Desktop)

In-App Feedback for Machine Learning features is available using the AI Red Eye Removal, Select Subject, or Select Sky. With this feature, you now have the option to provide feedback on the results of the AI process. An icon resembling a cartoon dialog bubble now appears in the interface when using one of these features, allowing you to provide feedback on the AI’s performance.

Compare View (Lightroom Desktop)

Lightroom Desktop now includes a Compare View with an option to place images side-by-side or stacked. The images can also be swapped.

Video (Lightroom Desktop)

You no longer need to leave Lightroom Desktop if you wish to make an edit to a video before sharing it on social media or elsewhere. Many of the Camera Raw edit controls that you are accustomed to using with your photos can also be used to edit your videos. You can also trim a video clip, altering its in-point and/or out-point to cut off any part of the beginning and/or end that you don’t want.

Batch Auto Settings (Lightroom Desktop)

You can now apply Auto Settings to any number of photos at once. Simply, select multiple photos in the grid, then invoke the command via the Photos menu or via the contextual menu.

New Camera Support

Details of new camera support added since the last release can be found here

New Lens Correction Support

Details of new lens support added since the last release can be found here

Bug Fixes

Lightroom Classic bug fixes listed here

Lightroom Desktop bug fixes listed here

Camera Raw bug fixes listed here

Disclosure: As an Adobe Community Expert I receive a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.

Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop | February 2022

 The latest updates to Lightroom Classic (11.2), Lightroom Desktop (5.2) and Camera Raw (14.2) were released to customers today (7 February). These updates include new camera and lens support plus bug fixes. There are also some performance enhancements to the Lightroom Classic Library module, tweaks to masking and some helpful enhancements to existing features in Lightroom Desktop.

Lightroom Desktop

Lightroom Classic

Multitasking in Library Module

With this release, Adobe have extended multitasking to Folder/Collection search and Library Metadata Filters. With this change, catalog read operations are unblocked for Folder/Collection search and Library Metadata Filters. In earlier versions these operations were sequential and thus blocked other catalog operations.

A useful example of where above will prove beneficial is when you apply a Develop preset using Quick Develop panel to a large set of images and also want to search different folders/collection or use metadata filters. Both operations can now be done simultaneously, unlike previous versions of LrC versions, where you had to wait for the first operation to complete before the second could be started.

Masking Enhancements

Adobe have added the following enhancements to the Masking panel.

  • The position of Masking Panel is remembered throughout the session, and it can also be moved to secondary monitor.
  • All components in a mask can be moved together without holding the Ctrl/Cmd key. However, the ‘mask’ should be selected, and not an individual component while this operation is being performed. This enhancement is applicable only to brush, linear gradient, and radial gradient masks
  • The Masking Panel can opened or closed using Shift+W

Photoshop Elements 2022

With this release, you can import a Photoshop Elements 2022 catalog into Lightroom Classic.

Lightroom Desktop

Lightroom Desktop receives the following enhancements.

  • Masking – Intersect Masking Option
  • Export Short Side – When exporting using custom dimensions, you can now choose to specify the dimension of the Short Side rather than the Long Side.
  • Version Export – Versions can be exported from the Versions panel both individually and all in a batch. This can be done with both Named Versions and Auto Versions.

New Camera Support

Details of new camera support added since the last release can be found here

New Lens Correction Support

Details of new lens support added since the last release can be found here

Bug Fixes

Lightroom Classic bug fixes listed here

Lightroom Desktop bug fixes listed here

Camera Raw bug fixes listed here

Disclosure: As an Adobe Community Expert I receive a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud

Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop | October 2021

Adobe  ‘Max 2021’ saw the announcement of Camera Raw 14, Lightroom Classic 11 and Lightroom Desktop 5. We’ve come to expect that each new version includes new features and this time round is no exception. New features shared across all of the applications, including iOS and Android mobile apps are: a new masking engine, camera matching profiles for Canon CR3 files, plus additional camera and lens support. There are also number of new or enhanced features specific to Lightroom Classic and others specific to the Desktop and mobile apps. I’ve identified the new features that apply to each below.

Masking (Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Cloud Ecosystem)

Adobe pre-announced the new masking feature in late September, thus giving customers an early insight into the improvements it would bring to their editing workflow. The new masking feature is a significant reworking of the Selective/Local Adjustments of previous versions. Adobe have also stated that the work involved also lays a foundation for additional capabilities to come some time in the future. Additionally, they have also implemented several customer feature requests submitted over the years. These include the ability to organise masks in a named list, toggle on/off individual masks, invert masks (including brushes), and mix and match mask types to form a single complex mask.

Range Masks, which were previously only available in Camera Raw and Lightroom Classic are now included in Lightroom Desktop and mobile apps, albeit with the benefit of a new more powerful interface, and it doesn’t stop there. Adobe have also incorporated Photoshop’s machine learning-driven ‘smart’ selection features such as ‘Select Subject’ and ‘Select Sky’. As with selective and local edits/adjustments in previous versions of Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic, etc, the Masking features are non-destructive.

In below screenshots, I show the basic Masking UI followed by an example that involves building up a relatively complex mask.

The first pair of screenshots shows the UI for the mask types along with the the supported adjustments. Note that the masking panels can be docked to the side of the existing panels, left floating or docked within the existing adjustments stack.

Moving on to the example. The first screenshot in below sequence is the original image. I wanted to darken the sky and foreground rocks plus brighten the tree.

For the second screenshot I chose the ‘Select Sky’ mask from the options list. The AI masking engine selected the sky with ease.

For the third screenshot I used the ‘Select Subject’ option. In this example, it also selected parts of the sky. Using the Luminance Range mask allowed me to sample the sky that I didn’t want this particular mask to affect when I made my adjustments. I also used the redesigned Luminance Range slider tool to fine-tune the selection.

For the fourth screenshot I first used ‘Color Range’ to sample the foreground. However, as expected, parts of the tree also shared the same colour and were therefore included in the mask. To remove the tree from the mask, I chose ‘Subtract’ and ‘Subject’.

Finally, I adjusted the adjustment slider settings on a mask by mask basis.

In this latest iteration, the range masks now work globally, although using the add and subtract controls they can still be applied within a gradient, just as before. As such, we no longer need to create a range mask as part of a graduate or radial filter. There is also greater control over the luminance range’s falloff, although this may cause some irritation/confusion on first use.

The data (bitmap files) associated with ‘sky’ and ‘subject’ masks is stored in a Lightroom Classic catalog data container (lrcat-data) or in the case of Camera Raw, a secondary sidecar file (.acr) or within DNG files if they are your preferred file format. To avoid losing ‘sky’ and ‘subject’ data It is essential that you do not delete the ‘lrcat-data’ container or ‘.acr’ sidecar.

For users who prefer to use keyboard shortcuts rather than a mouse or pen, Adobe have provided an extensive set of shortcuts specific to masking. These can be accessed by clicking on the ? button at top right corner of the mask panel.

Masks can be copied / pasted or synced to other images. There is no restriction on the type of masks that can be copied / pasted or synced, although in the case of file to file copy /paste / sync, the procedure for ‘sky’ and ‘subject’ masks requires that you ‘Update’ the mask. This step is not required if the source file is a Virtual Copy.

Camera Matching Profiles (Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Cloud Ecosystem)

They’ve been a long time coming, but at last, Camera Matching profiles for the following Canon EOS cameras that use the CR3 file format are available.

  • Canon EOS 1DX III
  • Canon EOS R3
  • Canon EOS R5
  • Canon EOS R6

Hopefully, the availability of these long awaited camera profiles signal that future Canon camera using the CR3 file format will be ‘fully’ supported.

Multitasking (Lightroom Classic)

The Library module is now capable of multitasking. With this change, catalog read operations, which in earlier versions were sequential resulted in blocking other catalog operations, which caused users a lot of fustration. For example, if you apply a preset to a set of images and want to navigate to a different set of images in different folder (i.e. a catalog read operation), then you can now do it simultaneously without having to wait for previous operations to complete. Another example of where blocking occurred was when renaming large numbers of files. In below screenshot, I show what happens in earlier versions if we try to change folders while the renaming process is ongoing. Obviously, this isn’t particularly helpful. However, with multitasking, changing folders during the renaming process means that grid area will be immediately populated and you can start the renaming process, then start the next Library task.

Metadata Panel (Lightroom Classic)

The Library module Metadata panel has been redesigned to give more control to the user. This redesign includes the following:

Active Image / All Images

  • When multiple images are selected, you now have the choice between seeing the metadata for the active image or for all images (same as that in older versions). This means that when a large number of images are selected and choosing ‘Target Photo’, you can avoid the long enumeration process that blocked other operations.
  • Above works in tandem with the Metadata > Show Metadata for Target Photo Only menu option.

Customize Metadata Default Panel

Another popular feature request that has been addressed in this release is the ability to create a custom metadata field list. Simply click on the ‘Customize’ button at the bottom of the Metadata Panel when ‘Default’ is selected in the pop-up menu. By selecting this option, you will be able to customise the metadata displayed in the default Metadata Panel for the selected image(s). However, care should be taken with the number of fields selected as too many can have an adverse impact on Library module performance.

The metadata fields within the panel can also be reordered to your preference

Edit-Only Mode

A new mode called ‘Edit-Only’ is now available within the Metadata panel. When enabled (i.e. click on eye icon at top left corner of panel) Edit-Only mode, you can edit all visible metadata fields in the Metadata panel for the selected Active Image or All Images. Note that no current metadata values are displayed in Edit-Only mode of Metadata panel.

Auto Save into XMP (Lightroom Classic)

With this release, Adobe have introduced enhancements for when ‘Automatically write changes into XMP’ option is enabled in Catalog Settings.

  • With this change, Develop module edits will be saved to the XMP sidecar file only after active image selection changes in Lightroom Classic or focus is moved to another application (e.g. Edit in Photoshop). This behaviour is unlike previous versions where every single edit operation was immediately saved into XMP. For example, in earlier versions, if you adjusted the exposure slider 10 times, the XMP sidecar file would be updated 10 times. The new behaviour is that XMP will be updated only once, with all the edits being written in one go.
  • Save to XMP sidecar is triggered automatically when there is any change in image metadata and the progress of save into XMP would be displayed in activity centre. There is no need to select the images manually.

Auto Save into XMP Progress bar

  • When enabled , you should be able to see the actual images count for which XMP writing is in- progress. However, this particular feature will likely only be visible when XMP writing is to a large number of files.

Auto Save into XMP Pause button

  • A ‘Saving XMP’ pause button has been added in activity centre to pause and resume the Auto Save into XMP.
  • This  button is only displayed when ‘Automatically write changes into XMP’ option is enabled in Catalog Settings.

I suspect above changes to XMP save behaviour will be welcomed by customers who would prefer to automatically save Develop module edits to the XMP sidecar but were deterred from doing so because of the significant performance hit that the previous behaviour caused.

Catalog Upgrades and Backups (Lightroom Classic)

Catalog updates and backups are not new to Lightroom Classic. However, with the introduction of the new masking feature, the upgrade and backup processes have become more complex, albeit still automatic.

Lightroom Classic will upgrade your 10.x or older catalogs to 11 when first launched. However, as mentioned above, the Smart Selection generated masks along with the 3D LUT (from profiles) will be stored next to catalog in a folder named <CatalogName>.lrcat-data. This folder will also be added to catalog backup, as this data is needed for rendering user edits properly.

Catalog Workflows

With this release, updates to various catalog workflows have been made to accommodate masks. These are:

Catalog Import

Masks, corresponding to the images imported from the source catalog, will be copied to destination catalog’s ‘.lrcat-data’ folder.

Catalog Export

Masks, corresponding to the images exported from the source catalog, will be copied to exported catalog’s ‘.lrcat-data’ folder.

Catalog Backup

Unless it is empty (i.e. does not contain ‘sky’ and/or subject’ masks, the ‘.lrcat-data’ folder will be included while backing up the catalog (.lrcat)

Catalog Optimisation

The key changes to the optimisation process are:

  • Any mask which is not being referred to by any image will be removed during a catalog optimise operation. This reduces the possibility of orphaned masks and saves on storage space.
  • If a mask is being referred to by an image through current settings, before settings, snapshots, or history, it will not be removed during the cleanup.
  • Lightroom Classic now relaunches after completion of Optimise operation.

Library Filter (Lightroom Classic)

With this release, there’s an option to Filter by a Date in Metadata filter. Therefore, you can now filter images by a specific date in any year range. This is often referred to as ‘On this date…’ and has been a long requested feature.

Premium Presets II (Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Cloud Ecosystem)

The original set of Premium Presets that first shipped in the June 2021 releases were found to be extremely popular with customers, and Adobe have followed up with additional sets of Premium presets.

Recommended Presets (Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem)

The ‘Recommended Presets’ feature is new to the Presets panel of Lightroom Desktop and mobile. When you select the ‘Recommended’ tab in the Presets panel, Lightroom looks through the tens of thousands of customer presets that are available in the Discover section and uses cloud based Artificial Intelligence to suggest some that may work well with your particular image.

GPS Field (Lightroom Desktop)

There is a new GPS field in the Info panel. This field will display the coordinates if the selected photo already has coordinate metadata.

Sync Time Remaining (Lightroom Desktop)

When Lightroom Desktop is syncing photos it will now give you an estimate of how long it will take for the sync to complete. The estimate is displayed in the pop-up menu that you get when you click on the cloud icon in the upper right corner of the application window.

Crop Overlays (Lightroom Desktop)

Lightroom Desktop now has a variety of crop overlays, in addition to the default rule of thirds overlay. The crop overlay can be switched using the pop-up in the crop panel, or by pressing ‘O’ while the crop tool is active. Pressing ‘shift-O’ will cycle the orientation of the selected crop overlay.

Operating System Requirements

macOS

  • Support for macOS Mojave (10.14.x) has been dropped. The minimum macOS version supported is macOS Catalina (10.15).
  • You will not be able to install Lightroom Classic 11.0 or later builds on macOS Mojave (10.14.x).
  • If you are using macOS Mojave (10.14.x), Adobe recommend that you update your OS to at least macOS Catalina (10.15).

Windows

  • Support for Windows 10 v1903 has been dropped. The minimum Windows 10 version supported would v1909 (or later).
  • You will not be able to install Lightroom Classic 10.0 or later builds on Windows 10 v1903. Installation would be allowed on Windows Server 2016 or later.
  • If you are using Windows 10 v1903, Adobe recommend that you update your OS to at least Windows v1909.

New Camera & Lens Support

  • Details on camera support can be found here
  • Details on lens support can be found here

Bug Fixes

  • Lightroom Classic bug fixes listed here
  • Lightroom Desktop bug fixes listed here
  • Camera Raw bug fixes listed here

Disclosure: As an Adobe Community Expert I receive a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud

Sneak Peak @ Mask feature in upcoming Lightroom & Camera Raw releases

Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw users have long hoped fort better ways to create masks. In particular, the type of complex masks that currently requires the user to edit their files in Photoshop. Examples would include ‘Add’, ‘Subtract’ and ‘Intersect’. So, a recent post on the Adobe Blog titled ‘Masking Reimagined’ giving a sneak peak at new masking technology to be incorporated into Lightroom and Camera Raw has stirred a lot of interest. More details of this new masking technology can be found at From the ACR Team: Masking Reimagined

I’ve been privileged to have early access to the new masking feature and believe it will substantially reduce the need for editing in Photoshop, which for many Lightroom users will be a welcome improvement. There’s a limit to what I can show at this time, but be assured that I will provide a comprehensive review on all the new features when the next version of Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw ships. In the meantime, I’ve included a very simple example of masking below. In this example, I’ve simply chosen the ‘Select Subject’ option and let Lightroom Classic do its ‘AI” thing 😉

 

Disclosure: As an Adobe Community Expert I receive a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud