P:(Masking) Make the mask available in Photoshop?

One of the biggest challenges big companies like Adobe have is to fight Tech Debt and Operational Debt.
One of the signs Adobe is showing more and more over the last years is that their teams "work in silos", producing more debt.
Integrating Lightroom/ACR/PS is a must if Adobe wants to be innovative, not a choice.

For example, their competitor integrated PS/Illustrator/InDesign into one single app.
Or, for example, their PS Liquify is undestructive and allow Raw images as SmartObjects to have reversible Liquify.
That is integration, actual value added! User-centric approach.
"It is not possible" is never true!

It is always possible.

currently working on a photogrammetry project and need to mask 750+ photos

By @Jeremy Jeremy Jeremy 

I’m in the same boat, using up to 100 or 200+ exposures for each scene. I typically shoot DNG and export TIFFs for full image quality. My photogrammetry software has an option to import masks from the alpha channel of the image files. I’ve been organizing and adjusting in LR Classic (macOS), masking in Photoshop and exporting as TIFF with an alpha channel. 

A TIFF export optionin LRC to include an alpha channel from masks (all masks flattened, or selecrtively) would be the most convenient way to keep my masks with my source images. PSD would probably work just as well. This would streamline the process, reduce disk use and file clutter, and save me from the cognitive overload of trying to manage and export alphas properly in PS. 

For masking operations, I would probably make use of “select subject,” “select objects,” manually brushing, and also selecting specular highlights on shiny objects to exclude from objects in individual shots. 

@Pedro Cortez Marques: "But I need it integrated in ACR not Lightroom."

You've posted in the LR Classic Ideas section. The Camera Raw Ideas section is here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/camera-raw/ct-p/ct-camera-raw?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all&lang=all&tabid=ideas 

But I need it integrated in ACR not Lightroom.

@Pedro Cortez Marques, 

The Copy Settings plugin extracts a photo’s masks as grayscale images suitable for use as layer masks in Photoshop:

https://johnrellis.com/lightroom/copysettings.htm#extract

It's not nearly as convenient as having it built-in to LR or CR, but it gets the job done.

In Editorial photography, many fashion brands need to scale their operations because the images need to be ready ASAP. Therefore, the brand's high-end post-production team doesn't want to do the "boring" job of masking all the image areas themselves.
So brands ask for the help of vendors who can prepare all images, already having a precise list of ready-made masks. Once the vendor delivers it, the brand handles the high-end retouching in-house.

Many masks are done in Photoshop, but we know that ACR is excellent for advanced masking.

Problem:
The client wants the final mask(s) in a PSD file in a few layers and, while ACR many times would do the job of creating the perfect mask faster and with more quality than Photoshop, we do not have a chance of exporting a mask from ACR to a mask in a Photoshop layer.

This would add value to many teams, would reduce the time to deliver the images (fashion brands value the quality and speed a lot). A hybrid workflow, ACR + PS for masking, would streamline the process.

What masks to export from ACR?
Option generic: ACR exports the flattened mask from several submasks
Option partial: ACR exports any selected mask(s) composite 

It would export directly to a pre-detected PS version of the active image/layer or layerSet.
If it is not possible to export the mask directly to PS, at least export it as a greyscale image, so that PS can load it later as a mask.

It could also export the full image + the mask as a PSD, or PSB if too big.

#mask #export #cameraraw #photoshop

I would like to be able to export the masks I use in camera RAW to alpha channels  when my image opens in photoshop. 

The ability to pick certain masks, or all would be nice. 

I would love it if the subject selection mask generated in Lightroom Classic would move with the image into Photoshop to be used there.

In Photoshop I would use this Lightroom Classic generated mask when applying an image texture to the backgroud the model was photographed against.  This would save the need to generate another subject selection mask again in Photoshop.  

The main usage of Lr masking is so as to apply a visual adjustment, and unless that same adjustment can itself be repeated in PS, the availability of an associated mask will be more or less moot AFAICT. LrC masking in my experience is a lot "looser" in character than is the case in PS, but still works suitably for ACR style adjustments which tend to themselves be selective and image adaptive.

Furthermore, AI Masking is not generated to match the full pixel resolution of the original underlying image, as would be the expectation and the requirement inside PS. So even if made available to PS, I think many LrC masks might prove disappointing there.

There are cases where this could be an efficient option even so. Something like choosing a particular mask to be used as basis for a layer (transparency) mask, for an exported / external edited bitmap. This would not involve translating any LrC local adjustments in themselves. The effect of those could still be hard rendered into the pixels as usual. If possible, it would be good if something similar could happen on the import side too. E.g., if for images with partial transparency already, LrC or ACR could understand that and respect it during editing and then pass on that transparency to export - rather than turning transparency into white pixels. I am suggesting LrC could maybe store this transparency info, and allow change to that, OR have that made new from scratch, in the form of a chosen named Mask (the associated adjustment might or might not do anything visually). Then LrC could become useful to (say) preparing extracted images for compositing together in PS. If the layer mask was not found perfect for the job, it could then be refined as needed using PS's much more advanced mask editing toolset.

What if Lrc would export separately Lrc masks as separate bw files to a specified folder then Ps would import these files as layers on top of the main RAW/TIF file? Then before bringing the edited TIF file back to Lrc it would need to be merged in Ps. Wouldn't it be a circumvention of RAW conversion limitation?
Right now the manual and timely workaround is to turn on one mask and turn off al the others in Lrc then remove colours and tweak photography levels to end up with bw high contrast photo. Export that photo as a mask 1. Then turn off the mask in Lrc and turn on the 2nd one. Repeat the steps. The result is a collection of masks as separate bw files ready to import to Ps as layers (masks) for the main photo.