Masks are areas of an image specially selected for editing. They are related to ‘selections’ in programs like Photoshop but more permanent, being saved with the image. Photo editors these days have all sorts of different masking tools from simple brushes to gradient tools and AI masking. Masks are used in programs like Lightroom for local adjustments.
One of the issues with Lightroom’s AI masks is that although they create very precise and accurate masks, they also tend to be very hard-edged. If your masking adjustments are fairly mild, you probably won’t notice, but if you push them to extremes, these hard mask edges become obvious. In particular you start to see strong edge artefacts and outlines. So can the new Edge and Feather adjustments fix this?
It seems so harmless. AI sky replacement is not even in the same league as generative AI, since it just uses AI masking and blending techniques to add in a new sky that’s also perfectly real and did exist, just not here. It’s just made something easier that needed a bit of Photoshop skill before. But it does cast light on some important questions about facts, representations and motives.
The DxO PhotoLab 9.6 update is not a major version release, so it’s a free update for existing PhotoLab 9 users, and a pretty substantial one at that. And there might be enough here to convince anyone thinking about getting DxO PhotoLab 9 to finally take the plunge.
DxO PhotoLab already had a formidable set of local adjustment tools, including some that rivals don’t have. PhotoLab’s clever control point masks and control lines, which effectively combine linear masks with selective masking, are unique to DxO. But other makers had already introduced AI masking with automatic region, subject and object detection, so it was about time PhotoLab caught up – and that’s exactly what DxO has done with the launch of PhotoLab 9.
Minimalism, brutalism and architecture, three of my favourite things. So when I got the chance to spend a week in a converted WWII bunker, I spent much of my time exploring the objects, compositions and lighting in this strange but extraordinary environment.
FilmPack 7 has a number of new features, including luminosity masking for more control over image adjustments, 25 new analog film renderings, new ‘digital’ renderings replicating modern digital camera picture styles, and an ‘enriched’ Time Machine mode where you can browse historical photos and recreate their look with your own images.
This is a new feature introduced to Lightroom and Lightroom Classic in April 2023. It arrived in the same update as the new Lightroom AI Denoise feature, so it would be easy to overlook it, given all the fuss over the AI denoising.
Super Select AI is a new feature that ON1 is working on. It’s not available yet, but should appear in ON1 Photo RAW some time soon.
Luminance masks sound like the perfect solution to a perennial problem – restricting masks to specific brightness ranges. But how useful are they really?
Selections and masks are subtly different, and the ‘parametric’ masks in non-destructive editors give more flexibility than ever.