What Lightroom Masking enhancements would you like to see? Lightroom updates at MAX last October brought a whole new system for local adjustments with masking. Now you’ve had time to use it, would do you think would make it even better?
Now is a great time to consider this and add your own Feature Requests, and vote for existing requests. The more popular requests are likely the ones that will get Adobe’s attention.
Popular requests
Here’s some of the most popular Masking requests. If you feel one or more is a really good idea, perhaps as it’ll save you editing time, then visit and Vote for the post. If you have a new idea, then post it!
- Add an auto update to recompute subject / sky masking over multiple images
- Function to invert / flip a mask group
- Add feather control to Select Subject mask
- Set a default name for masks by type (instead of just ‘mask’)
- Create a shortcut key for Select Subject
- Add refine subject options
- Give the option to flatten mask
- Add color mixer to Local Adjustments
- Add Color Grading to Local Adjustments
- Make the Lightroom Mask available in Photoshop
- Make a Select Skin feature
To vote on your favourite requests, make sure you’re signed in using your Adobe ID, then hit the Upvote button in the top right corner.
Here’s how to add your own new ideas: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/send-bug-report-feature-request-adobe/
You can help shape the development of Lightroom Masking!
And if you haven’t got to grips with the new Masking features yet, we covered them in the release blog posts: What’s New in Lightroom Classic 11.0 (October 2021)? and What’s New in Lightroom (Cloud Service) October 2021 release? Our two Lightroom books are fully updated with additional details (eBook versions).
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
Note: purchase of these books includes the first year’s Classic or cloud-based Premium Membership (depending on the book purchased), giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the applicable Lightroom version if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
We also have a special bundle offer for the two books. This includes Premium Membership for the first year as described above for the whole Lightroom family!
I’d like to see a mask for sky reflections in water so you could match the sky mask edits in the water reflection without painting a mask for the water (unless this is already possible).
Nice idea, make sure you add it to Adobe’s forum.
Hi there,
Likely you will cover this, but could you include Mask Intersections? Specifically, best practices when doing them
We’ve already got some information on intersections in Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ book, but we’re always looking to expand on any extra details readers might want.
The first thing I looked for when 11 came out was how I could subtract one named mask from another. I guess I was looking for Photoshop features… It would be nice if masks could be copied/pasted/subtracted rather than having to do all the work over again with the limited add/substract/combine within one layer mask
You can duplicate components to reuse in other masks… it’s not quite the same but it’s pretty powerful and saves doing everything again.
Thank you Victoria & Paul for this very useful post.
Would some of the requested features added to future LrC releases, do you think they will be available in Lr (Cloud Based) too?
My guess is that the “underlying mask engine” of Lr (Cloud Based) is not the same as the one of LrC.
Guido
The underlying engine is the same across Camera Raw and all Lightroom products (Classic and Ecosystem.
Thank you Rikk (and V&P)!
I would like to be able to invert a complex mask, consisting of several elements with 1 click!
That’s a popular one, and it’d be so helpful. Add your comments / Vote to the request:
Function to invert / flip a mask group (link above)