Lightroom's AI Landscape Masking

Masks are a great creative tool because you can make targeted edits to specific parts of an image, which enhances your artistic flexibility in the digital darkroom. Adobe Lightroom’s latest addition to its growing collection of mask selections is the AI Landscape Masking tool (this feature has also been added to Camera Raw). I wouldn’t say that this tool is a major game changer, but it’s worth checking out. Watch the video below to see how this tool works selecting specific areas in different landscape photos.

If you have any trouble watching the video above, you can also watch it here.

Adobe’s landscape mask allows you to automatically detect and select features of the landscape to make precise, targeted edits. As of this writing, the landscape mask is capable of detecting up to 7 landscape features:

• Sky

• Architecture

• Vegetation

• Water

• Natural ground

• Artificial ground

• Mountains

In theory, this tool is supposed to precisely select the aforementioned elements in your photos, but it doesn’t always work properly. Also, as you’ll see in the video, these categories don’t get precisely applied (for example, Lightroom might make a selection of a landscape feature that isn't a mountain, but call the selection "Mountains" anyways). I recommend not getting hung up on the labels, as the selection itself is the thing that really matters; if the selection allows you to precisely isolate the sandstone hoodoos in the photo that you want to selectively edit, don't worry if Lightroom incorrectly calls them vegetation.

How to Use the Lightroom Landscape Masking Tool

Once you make a selection and click on ‘Create’, you can make adjustments to that specific portion of the scene. Lightroom previously gave you several options for selective masking, but the new Landscape Masking tool can give you more options, so this feature is an improvement in that regard.

The Landscape Masking tool is far from perfect, and sometimes you end up with imprecise selections that don't properly target the parts of the landscape you wish to edit. When this happens, you can manually fine tune your mask using the Add or Subtract option. 

It’s worth noting that you don’t always need to use this tool to edit landscape photos exclusively. It’s suitable for any kind of outdoor photograph that includes skies, architecture, vegetation, etc. Yes, this means that you can even use it to enhance certain elements in portrait and wildlife photos! Here are some examples of the selections it can make on different types of photos. (P.S. These aren't my photos, I simply grabbed some stock photos to make it easier to illustrate these masks in action.) The selections made by Lightroom are red.

Vegetation Mask

Mountain Mask

Sky Mask

Natural Ground Mask

Architecture Mask

Artificial Ground Mask

Water Mask

So, you can see that for certain types of images, the landscape masking tool can work very well. For other images... maybe not so much. Combined with Adobe's existing masking tools, however, you now have a lot of options available when you're trying to make precise selections.

Conclusion

Adobe’s AI Landscape Masking tool can expand your selection options. It’s a modest improvement over existing selection options, but it's definitely a step in the right direction, as more options give you more creative flexibility. I expect Adobe to improve this tool in the future, and it’s something that I recommend experimenting with. 

Have you tried this masking tool yet? If so, what do you think of it? Let me know in the comments!