Spot removal on area within mask?

[DavePinMinn]

A question came up today. 

Image of a swan head with sky in the background.  Between swan and sky are a couple weeds sticking up behind head.

I can do a select subject and get the swan.  And clean it up with a brush.  And invert it so the sky has a good selection.  But HOW do I do the spot removal while in a mask?

I DON'T KNOW of any way to do this in Lightroom, but it's very simple and straightforward in Photoshop.

IS there a way to do operations like spot removal from within a mask?

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

No, the Spot Removal Tool is not available while in the Masking panel.

You only have Spotting tool options. eg. Feather & Size. Clone or Heal.

Good suggestion though!

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/ct-p/ct-lightroom-classic?page=1&sort=latest_replie...

[dj_paige]

You do the spot removal before you start masking.

[DavePinMinn]

Sometimes you can't do it very well without the masking.  Or, its just a lot EASIER with a mask. 

I couldn't think of a way to do it in Lightroom, but I was hoping I'd missed some feature.  That'll be one of the capabilities I'll have to let all the folks in the Lightroom class know is best left to Photoshop.

Thanks for confirming what I thought.

[Per Berntsen]

Maybe I'm missing something, but can't you do the spot removal after masking, with the masking panel closed?

[dj_paige]

@Per Berntsen Yes, that makes sense as well, however it is my understanding (and maybe someone can correct me if I am wrong) that the design was to do spot removal BEFORE masking, and that things don't always work properly if you do the spot removal after masking.

[Ian Lyons]

Yes, healing / cloning must be done before applying any AI based mask (i.e. sky or subject). Below is an example of what happens if the healing / cloning is applied after the AI mask.

[dj_paige]

Ok, thanks @Ian Lyons so this issue with cloning just applies to the AI masks.

[Ian Lyons]

Yes, Ai only. If this wasn't the case, then millions of images with previous generation of masks would have a similar problem to that displayed in above screenshot.

[Per Berntsen]

I guess the problem here is that the bird is not part of the sky selection, or is only partially selected.

If that's the case, it could have been added to the mask using a brush before cloning.

Removing dust spots from masked skies works fine for me.