How exactly does the Sharpness slider in a Mask work?

[GGR001]

Operating System

1. Windows 11

The Global Sharpening adjustment uses the Masking, Radius, Detail, and Amount sliders to determine where and how much sharpness to add to an image.

But does anyone know how Sharpness works in a mask?

Does it still only apply Sharpness to the parts of the image that are allowed in the Masking slider from the Global Sharpening?

When I use negative Sharpness in a mask, it actually appears to blur the image in the masked area. Is this a Gaussian blur like you would find in Photoshop?

I do a lot of wildlife photography, and it would help to understand how Sharpness works in a mask to get the most out of it.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

According to Victoria’s book Adobe Lightroom Classic: The Missing FAQ (page 446), the Sharpness option in a mask makes a local change to Amount. The image-wide values for Radius, Detail, and Masking also apply to all of that image’s masks; in other words Sharpness in a mask adjusts the combined Amount of those image-wide values.

It took a while to find a reference to what negative Sharpness does, but on page 358 the Missing FAQ book says that Sharpening starts to blur at a value of -50. Jeff Schewe’s book The Digital Negative is a little more specific, saying on page 127:

A setting of –1 through –49 reduces the Detail panel amount. A setting of –50 through –100 actually adds a blur similar to Photoshop’s Lens Blur filter.

 

[GGR001]

According to Victoria’s book Adobe Lightroom Classic: The Missing FAQ (page 446), the Sharpness option in a mask makes a local change to Amount. The image-wide values for Radius, Detail, and Masking also apply to all of that image’s masks; in other words Sharpness in a mask adjusts the combined Amount of those image-wide values.

It took a while to find a reference to what negative Sharpness does, but on page 358 the Missing FAQ book says that Sharpening starts to blur at a value of -50. Jeff Schewe’s book The Digital Negative is a little more specific, saying on page 127:

Good to know.
So to maximize sharpening on a subject, I could set the Masking slider to zero or a low value, then use a background mask and a Sharpness of -49 to get rid of all the added Sharpening in the background of the image. In my subject mask, I would add as much sharpening as I need (to my taste as they say).

Is there any similar info about how Noise Reduction works inside a Mask?

 

[Conrad Chavez]

Is there any similar info about how Noise Reduction works inside a Mask?

In Victoria’s book, again on page 446, it says:

The Noise Reduction slider increases or decreases any global noise reduction that you’ve applied…

Sounds like that’s similar to sharpening, where the one value in the mask adjusts the combined image-wide values.