In masking mode, can you 'Option' select at a point and paint with the brush. to mask that hue?

[Ken Nielsen]

The seems to be a feature that is now missing from Lightroom Classic 'Masking' while painting with the brush. Option - click' used to select the hue or value and then painting while holding down the Option key would. paint a mask only over those areas of intensity. Very handy for changing the value of selected areas in a selected part of an image. Does this feature still exist? It does not seem to be working in the last four or five releases of Lightroom. Maybe it has been updated? I know Adobe has been scrambling to build on this wonderful masking environment so I could be missing what is going on with this.

TIA,  Ken

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

I think you are asking about 'Auto Masking'- Check the [Auto Mask] button.

One 'trick' with the Auto Mask selected is to use a giant brush that covers ALL the color area you want to edit (even the whole image!) and Click once- you will find that the brush selects all the tones as per the spot you clicked.

My Brush selecting Blue color (green overlay)

[Ken Nielsen]

Thank You Rob, I'm so glad this is still a part of our abilities in Lightroom masking. Appreciation!

[Ken Nielsen]

I'm coming back to this after trying it out. Once I 'click' on the spot with the tone I want to select nothing happens. If I then drage the brush to paint in the area and then move outside of the area with the tone, the brush just acts normally and paints over everything without regard to tone or the spot I had selected. I've done this carefully to follow exactly as you have said and shown here. I'm missing something and have tried this over the past few days but I must come back and ask what I could be possibly doing wrong to miss this great feature. ----- Okay, I would have deleted this but I see not that the brush size is important as you say as moving the brush is not good as it will 'select' whatever is under the center point as the 'auto mask' area. I think I've got this now and no need to reply. Thank You