Tag: Lightroom

Masking in Lightroom

The February meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held on Feb 14 at the Community United Methodist Church. Come at 6 PM for socializing; the presentation will begin at 6:30 PM. This month, we will have a presentation by Doug Coombs on Masking in Lightroom.

Lightroom (LR) introduced very powerful new masking tools in October of 2022. Learning to use these new tools is a game changer for photographers who are serious about post processing. Before this, LR had masking but it was not nearly as powerful as tools in Photoshop (PS). When you shoot a photo with your phone, the manufacturer’s software is using sophisticated algorithms to post-process it. If you shoot .jpg in your camera, your camera is doing the same. Ansel Adams was a master at post-processing in the darkroom and altered his original image greatly to take it beyond journalism to fine art. 

Moonrise Over Hernandez – Ansel Adams

See https://petapixel.com/2018/11/07/the-story-behind-ansel-adams-iconic-moonrise-hernandez/ for an article on Moonrise Over Hernandez, one of Ansel Adams’ most famous photos.

Today we can do much more, with more control and more options digitally, which has raised the bar considerably. People used to ask me if a photo was “photoshopped”, as if post-processing in Photoshop (PS) is somehow cheating. All fine art photos of all sorts have been post-processed from the beginning of photography, at least to adjust overall light balance, contrast and emphasis. LR and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) use the same photo processing engine. LR is separate from PS and includes many photography-specific tools. PS incorporates ACR with many additional tools in PS itself, often used after post-processing in ACR. In terms of processing a raw photo, ACR and LR are basically equivalent. Doug will discuss the masking tool in LR and ACR from the LR perspective and then demonstrate how he has processed some photos using LR masking. It is not uncommon for him to use multiple masks in a photo. Each mask is considered a local adjustment and emphasizes some particular aspect of the photo. It could be an animal’s eye, head or portion of its body. It could be the sky, foreground or band of vegetation in a landscape. It could be part of a person’s face including eyes, lips, teeth, cheeks and more. Doug  will provide useful links from YouTube at his presentation.

Even if you don’t use LR or ACR, masking is a universal tool found in other post-processing software, so this presentation should be useful.

The photo of the eagle below, has four masks.

The naturescape below, has three masks.

This program will also be available via Zoom. Members will receive an email with the Zoom link, others may request it by email (abutler@mac.com).

The Pagosa Springs Photography Club welcomes all who enjoy making and viewing great photography. The Club sponsors educational programs and outings to help photographers hone their skills.  For more information about the club, and to download a membership application, visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/ .

April Photo Club Meeting – Masking in Lightroom

Plains Zebras
Looking Your Way, © Doug Coombs. This image was processed using the Lightroom masking tool, with three separate masks (subject AI, gradient, and brush).

The April meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held on Wednesday, April 13, 6:30 p.m., at the Community United Methodist Church, 434 Lewis Street in Pagosa Springs. Our speaker this month is Doug Coombs, who will demonstrate and discuss use of the new masking tools in Lightroom This will be a hybrid meeting, also available on Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed to members; others who wish to attend may request the link by email to abulter@mac.com . If attending in person, feel free to arrive any time after 6 p.m.; the actual presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m., MST. 

Doug Coombs is the co-founder of the Los Alamos Adobe Users Group in New Mexico. He is primarily a landscape and nature photographer, with an affinity for birds and wildlife. Doug now splits his time between Los Alamos and Pagosa Springs, with a generous amount of travel to photogenic destinations.

Doug will talk about and demonstrate the new masking tool in Lightroom. He will show how to make selections for targeted adjustments. This includes selections of the sky and selections of the subject as calculated by Lightroom, something that has been in Photoshop for a couple of years now. It also includes radial filters, gradient filters, and brushes all of which can be limited by luminosity (brightness) and color. This new tool is extremely powerful and adds a new level of capability to the brushes and filters that Lightroom has had for many years. Watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGkYu2hLSDg&t=129s first on Youtube provides an excellent overview.

Following the presentation, members may share up to five of their recent images with the group. If attending by Zoom, please submit these by Tuesday, March 8. They may be emailed to abutler@mac.com. If attending in person, images may be brought on a flash drive.

The Pagosa Springs Photography Club promotes educational, social and fun interactions between all who enjoy making and viewing great photography.  The club sponsors educational programs and outings to help photographers hone their skills.  The Photography Club’s membership year begins in January. For new members, dues are at $25 per year ($35 family). For more information about the club, and to download a membership application, visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/ .

July 14 Meeting: Lightroom Catalog, Part II

Big Horn Ram in Yellowstone National Park, © Doug Coombs

This month’s Photography Club meeting will be on Wednesday, July 14 at 6:30 PM, MDT. Our featured speaker this month is Doug Coombs. Doug’s presentation will be Lightroom Catalog—Part II. In his May presentation, Doug described the basics of Adobe Lightroom’s catalog, including how to create a catalog, how to import images to a catalog, the relationship and location of the catalog and your images, useful settings, and backing up the catalog. 

In this second part, Doug will go cover the layout of the Library module in Lightroom, and will discuss some of the tools for organizing images, including using the Filter, Toolbar and Filmstrip. He will discuss and demonstrate using collections, keywords, and built-in metadata like EXIF to efficiently organize and search for images in the Lightroom Catalog. 

Club members will receive an email with the Zoom link for this presentation. Others who are interested in watching may contact Andy Butler at abutler@mac.com  for the link. 

Doug Coombs is a co-founder of the Los Alamos Adobe Users Group in New Mexico and former chair of the Los Alamos Photography Club. Doug is primarily a landscape and nature photographer, and is well-known for his bird and nightscape photographs. Examples of Doug’s photography can be found on his website, dougsview.com. He splits his time between Los Alamos, Pagosa Springs, and a generous amount of travel to photogenic destinations.

The Pagosa Springs Photography Club promotes educational, social and fun interactions between all who enjoy making and viewing great photography.  The club sponsors educational programs and outings to help photographers hone their skills. Membership is just $25/calendar year for individuals and $35 for families. Non-members are invited to attend a meeting to learn more about the club. For membership information visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/ .

May 12: “Lightroom Catalog Quick Start”

Snow Geese at Moonrise, Bosque del Apache © Doug Coombs

The May meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held on May 12 at 6:30 PM, via Zoom video conference. The program will feature Club member Doug Coombs, who will present “Lightroom Catalog Quick Start”. 

Doug is the co-founder of the Los Alamos Adobe Users Group in New Mexico. He is primarily a landscape and nature photographer, with an affinity for birds and wildlife. Doug now splits his time between Los Alamos and Pagosa Springs, with a generous amount of travel to photogenic destinations.

Not only does Adobe Lightroom Classic provide an excellent PC and Mac based post processing tool for digital photography, it also provides a superb cataloging system to aid in post processing and to organize images. In this talk Doug will mention the various versions of Lightroom but specifically discuss Lightroom Classic. He will show where the catalog and its images are stored on a PC, discuss some cataloging strategies and fundamental catalog settings. He will briefly show some organizational techniques he finds useful, how the catalog is a tightly coupled partner with Adobe Photoshop, and briefly discuss his backup strategy. The presentation will be made available to Club members and will contain many useful links to topics that users new to Lightroom may have not yet discovered.

Following Doug’s program, we will have a member’s image share session. Each Club member may submit up to five images for sharing and discussion.

Club members will receive an email with the Zoom link for this meeting. Others who are interested in watching May contact Andy Butler at abutler@mac.com for the link. 

March 10 Meeting: Tips & Tricks for Digital Photo Processing

portrait of a Cougar at the Albuquerque Zoo.
Cougar, taken at the Albuquerque Zoo, © Chris Roebuck

The Pagosa Springs Photography Club (PSPC) will meet by Zoom video-conference on Wednesday March 10, at 6:30 p.m. Our speaker will be Photography Club member Chris Roebuck. His topic will be Important tips and tricks for successful digital processing. In the program, Chris will consider both technical and artistic considerations in processing digital photos. Using tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, he will discuss enhanced mid-tone contrast adjustments, maintaining detail with exposure adjustments, and global color corrections. 

Chris Roebuck has honed his photography skills through a commitment to taking advantage of workshops and other educational opportunities whenever possible, including intensive courses from the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, in Missoula, Montana, and Maine Media Workshops and College. Chris is primarily a wildlife photographer, and hopes to always be a student of the photographic arts. 

This will be a virtual meeting, live on-line, using Zoom video-conferencing. You may participate in the program from the comfort and safety of your own home. Photography Club members will receive a Club email containing a Zoom weblink to participate in Chris’s presentation. Others who are interested in taking part may contact Club president Andy Butler for information, at abutler@mac.com. Photography Club members may also submit up to five images to share with the group after the presentation. This month’s theme is open, so submit any of your five favorite/best photos.

The Pagosa Springs Photography Club promotes educational, social and fun interactions between any and all who enjoy making and viewing great photography.  The club sponsors educational programs and outings to help photographers hone their skills. Non-members are invited to attend a meeting to learn more about the club. For membership information visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/ .

Luminosity & Color Masking in Lightroom, July 8

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Fisher Towers, © Doug Coombs

The July 8 meeting of the Pagosa Springs Photography Club will be held at 6:15 p.m., on-line via Zoom videoconference. We welcome back Doug Coombs, who will give a presentation on Luminosity Masking in Lightroom.  

Adobe Lightroom added the capability to use luminosity and color to target local adjustments using the Gradient, Brush, and Radial tools in 2018 using the “Range Mask”. This enables the photographer to make precisely targeted adjustments to selected areas of a photograph. Think of it as dodging and burning, contrast adjustments, color adjustments and other post processing techniques on steroids. Doug will demonstrate how to use the Lightroom Brush and Gradient tools with and without the Range Mask. We may even distribute a photograph to the audience that Doug will process in Zoom and Lightroom while the audience opens Lightroom on their computers to perform the same adjustments. Everything Doug will show in Lightroom can also be done in Adobe Camera Raw, for those you only own a recent version of Photoshop. For a video tutorial on these controls, check out Matt Kloskowski’s blog post on the subject, at:  https://mattk.com/lightrooms-most-powerful-masking-tools/  .

Doug is the chair and co-founder of the Los Alamos Adobe Users Group in New Mexico and a former chair of the Los Alamos Photography Club. He has been doing photography since high school, worked as a photographer and dark room tech in college, and fell in love with digital photography in 2003. Doug is primarily a landscape and nature photographer, with an affinity for birds and wildlife. He now splits his time between Los Alamos, Pagosa Springs, and a generous amount of travel to various photogenic destinations.

This will be a virtual meeting, live on-line, using Zoom video-conferencing. You may participate in the program from the comfort and safety of your own home. Photography Club members will receive a Club email containing the Zoom weblink to participate in Doug’s presentation. Members may also submit up to five photos to share, following Doug’s talk. Others who are interested in taking part in the Zoom meeting may contact Club president Andy Butler for information, at abutler@mac.com . 

The Pagosa Springs Photography Club promotes educational, social and fun interactions between any and all who enjoy making and viewing great photography. Annual membership dues are just $25. For membership information visit our website at https://pagosaspringsphotoclub.org/about/