
The same goes for the options for modifying and refining masks.Īdobe has also improved how masks are organized and grouped. Range masks, which were previously available only in ACR and Lightroom Classic, are coming to Adobe Lightroom and Lightroom mobile. Every masking tool now works on desktop and mobile, including AI-powered masking tools. There are also improved overlay visualizations, allowing masks to be previewed in more ways.Īdobe has done a lot of work recently making sure that using Lightroom on desktop and mobile feels similar and offers users a like-for-like experience. You can name each mask to ensure you know what each mask is doing on your image. Image credit: AdobeĬonsidering improved workflow and organization of selections, the new masking panel helps keep everything organized. The new masking engine unveiled today by Adobe changes that, allowing Select Sky and Select Subject to be used within ACR and Lightroom (on desktop and mobile). It couldn't work in ACR or Lightroom, however, because the old masking engine only worked with vector-based masking, while the AI-based tools use bitmap selections. Select Sky was first available in Adobe Photoshop. Another new feature is the ability to use range masks globally, which was an oft-requested change from users. For example, if you want to adjust everything but the sky, you can use Select Sky and then invert the masked selection.

Bury writes, 'The ability to subtract an AI-powered mask from another masking tool results in some amazingly powerful selections, and is one of my favorite ways of using these tools.' Any selection can be inverted, as well. You can also subtract masks from any other mask. You can create a mask using brush, gradient, luminance, color range selections and AI-powered tools in a single mask group. Within mask groups, users can combine any mask tools. To make it easier to work with mask tools, the team created mask groups. The Design Research team focused on delivering more control and flexibility, improved workflow and organization of selections, consistency across all devices, and improved in-app support. In addition to ensuring different masking technologies can work together within ACR and Lightroom, the team took the opportunity to change how users interact with masking tools within ACR and Lightroom. You can use Select Sky and Select Subject and invert the selections to create a mask of the foreground and background, allowing you to edit everything but the sky and the person in the image. 'The brush, gradients, and range masks continue to be vector-based (to limit space used when making masks) while the AI-powered tools such as select subject and select sky use these bitmap-based masks.' Adobe needed to ensure both vector-based and bitmap-based masks could work together on the same image within the new masking engine. Lighter and darker values represent different amounts of selection. However, 'new AI-based masks, however, require bitmap, or image-based, support.' The AI-based masks create a grayscale image.


This required only small amounts of data.
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Adjustments made via brush or gradient were stored in the software as mathematical expressions. The old selection technologies were vector-based.
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Working AI-based selection tools into the ACR/Lightroom masking engine required considerable work, especially when considering how to get the tools to operate within Lightroom on mobile devices. The discussions took place over about a year and a half period. To ensure that a core reworking made sense for its customers, Adobe reached out to tens of thousands of customers across ACR, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic userbases and talked to them about selective adjustment tools. 'The new Select Subject tool automatically creates a precise mask of the salient subject with a single click, and works on people, animals, and inanimate objects.' Image and caption credit: Adobe The imaging processing engine in ACR and Lightroom was incompatible, so the engine needed to be reworked at a foundational level. These tools have been well-received, so the Adobe Research Team got to figure out how to incorporate these tools into ACR and Lightroom. The impetus for redesigned masking tools was brought on, at least in part, but AI-powered selection tools such as Select Subject and Sky Replacement in Adobe Photoshop.
