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Participant
November 10, 2024

P: Masking overlays do not always appear (Mac)

  • November 10, 2024
  • 37 replies
  • 6492 views

Lightroom overlays do not appear.

The overlays do not appear and no matter how many settings I change, they do not respond at all.

37 replies

Participant
October 10, 2025

I've tried everything to solve this problem. I've restored Lightroom, completely removed the entire Adobe suite with its own total clean-up tool, etc. Nothing works.

 

In Lightroom Classic, mask viewing does work, but I'm more familiar with the modern Lightroom.

This problem makes Lightroom completely useless to me.

Participant
October 10, 2025

Thanks for starting this post. I have also been experiencing this issue (mask overlay not displaying in Lightroom) for some time. And like others have reported, when I’ve experienced this issue in the past (with prior versions of Lightroom), closing Lightroom and then restarting it has been a temporary workaround to restore mask overlay visibility. However that is no longer working: I am currently running Lightroom version 8.5.1 and Mac OS 15.7.1. It has made Lightroom unusable for me, especially when you go back to fine-tune an existing adjustment mask that you’ve created and are now unable to see what the original mask area looked like while trying to further adjust it. Please fix this problem ASAP. Thanks. 

Participant
October 5, 2025

I'm running Lightroom 8.5.1. y MacOS 26.0.1 and the error continues. Before the last update, I can "resolve" it restarting the app over and over, but now I can't. Restart doesn't work 😞

Participating Frequently
September 23, 2025

I am running version 8.5.1 and I'm still having this issue on Sept. 23.  It is very annoying.  I'll edit a photo and everything is good with the overlay toggle until it's not.  The toggle just stops working.  I usually have to close and reopen LR and sometimes that doesn't work

Participating Frequently
September 16, 2025

This exact issue has returned in the latest Lightroom update, this is insane.

Participant
July 25, 2025

This still doesn't work for me. No matter what I toggle, I very often have situations where I cannot get a mask overlay to appear. I've read all of the replies in this thread and there is no "try this" step that I have not tried. 

 

I'm using Lightroom 8.4 on MacOS 15.5, but this issue has been going on for... months? Years? This is simply the first time I've finally been unable to ignore how frustrating it is. 

 

In the below screengrabs, I have hovered over the mask in the toolbar – you can see that it shows the tool icon over where the mask should be, but not the overlay. 

 

 

In the below image, I've increased exposure to 100% to show the mask selection. 

 

 

So, again, while you're out here regularly increasing prices, what the heck is going on? 

andyh_73
Participating Frequently
June 17, 2025

Thanks @Rikk Flohr: Photography. Issue is fixed and a few more goodies in the update too!

Participant
June 17, 2025

This issue is much much better, but it is still not 100% fixed.

Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Community Manager
June 17, 2025

Greetings all, 

 

A new update for the Adobe Photography products has been released.  The June update contains an update for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

 

Thank you for being so patient.

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
Known Participant
June 17, 2025

Thanks for fixing the mask overlay in Lightroom 8.4 Update!