Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw have features that allow masking of photographic images. Masking is essentially ‘dodging’ and ‘burning’ your digital image, only supercharged. In addition to lightening or darkening areas of your photo, masking allows you to change much more, like saturation and contrast.
One of the best recent features is ‘intersecting masks‘ – the combining of more than one mask to resolve specific elements in a photo, like petals, leaves, or particular color.
Applying A Mask
By applying a mask, the photographer can manipulate specific areas or objects in an image to emphasize and eliminate elements. Both Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw have masking AI (artificial intelligence) that can automatically select specific areas of the photo, like a person, sky, or background. Additionally, you can add or subtract to the mask by selecting specific mask criteria like color or luminescence, or by using a brush or eyedropper to select a detail.
- Adobe Bridge – free photo organizer that integrates well with Adobe Camera Raw and other Adobe products. It works well stand-alone as well.
- Adobe Camera Raw – free plugin with Photoshop, ACR is a raw photo tool with many of the same capabilities as Adobe Lightroom
- Adobe Lightroom – my go-to photo organizer and editor.