P:(Masking)Add controls to modify mask to expand, contract, or feather in AI Selections

[vitalijc83578815]

When I want to soften a bokeh, I can create mask by clicking the "Select Subject" button, invert it and decrease Sharpeness.

But the problem occurs at the edges of subject, the edges of subject are blurred too. The only way is to create another brush mask, paint around the subject and subtract it from original mask.

1. It would be nice if there was a feather control in "Select Subject" that would extend the mask.

2. It would be great if there were an option to automatically recalculate AI mask after synchronization or if mask was copied to a new photo or when applying preset with AI mask.

With this features softening the bokeh could be saved as a preset and it would be very easy to apply it.

[GoldingD]

my bad, my posting below is not same or similar , oops

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-select-sky-masking-add-refine-slider/idi-p/...

[imontv08]

I think this would be really useful. Especially in luminance masks it could prevent detail loss because of tone compression, which otherwise happens now and then and looks really ugly.

[GoldingD]

How is that different from using the upper and/or lower falloff in the Luminance mask, and the Refine slider in the Color Range mask?

[imontv08]

The falloff is still based on the luminosity value. An additional feather option would create a soft edge regardless of the color/luminosity value and would help to preserve details in areas with little color variance (where tone compression can become an issue).

[John R Ellis]

If you post detailed screenshots of an example photo illustrating what you want, you might get others to upvote this idea, and Adobe will be a little more likely to consider it.

[imontv08]

Here it is. To demonstrate what I mean, I created a luminance mask with Photoshop (Color Range Selection Tool on the highlights), as Photoshop has a feather slider in the mask properties. You can encounter the same issue (second paragraph in the picture) in Lightroom, but there is no feather slider to get rid of it.

[imontv08]

Here is a screenshot directly from Lightroom. It shows what happens when you apply a luminance mask to the brighter half of the picture (with falloff stretching to the shadows) and reduce its brightness by 1 stop.

[imontv08]

Here is another example how mask feather (aka "edge softening") can help to recover lost details and improve local contrast dramatically when working with Luminance/Color Range Masks. IMHO that's an important feature and I don't see any way to do this in LR right now. Or am I missing something?

[Luker]

Using an inverted "Select subject" mask and sharpness adjustment can create great depth focus. Unfortunately the edging of a subject are caught up in the subject mask and a fully edge.

Please add the ability to expand a subject mask by a set number of pixels to prevent this phenomenon.

[imontv08]

The more I work with luminosity masks in LR, the more annoying this issue becomes. Please, Adobe, add a feather slider. It's a simple fix and it would make luminosity/color range masks so much more usable.

(Expand/Shrink (by a certain number of pixels) would be a nice addition, too.)

[Venturini]

Hi! Some of these features are sorely lacking and forces me to export the image to be finished in another app:

- Sky and object mask: the lack of refinement and diffusion option around the selected object is lacking. For example, inverting the mask to manipulate the background, often the object becomes useless when the mask invades part of the object's edges. This feature would be very useful.
- PNG export: depending on the type of photo it is inevitably necessary to export it to another app and repeated manipulation of JPEG images is destructive and no other mobile app supports TIFF
- Liquify brush: useful for many corrections and also avoid the need to use another app (Polarr, for example)
- Masking with the same features as the unmasked image: selective hue/saturation/brightness manipulation, add noise, detail,... Very very useful.

Thank you!

[DC Thompson]

It would be nice to be able to use the select subject option in Lightroom, then expand the autoselected mask a few pixels out to readjust the selection. 

Personally, I do a lot of corporate headshots and the like againsts a blown out white wall. I usually select and mask the subject and invert the selection to ensure the wall is completely blown out edge to edge. This works great, but a lot of the time when I do this the subjects hair gets all crispy. I usually fix this with a wacom tablet and pen, but it would be nice to have a more macro-level technique to emplement.

[Roberto Tartaglione]

I really think it will be useful if lightroom Masks could be feathered.

thanks

[GoldingD]

What particular masks? Some are. More specifically, the brushes you use to define the masks are. 
I suspect you are referring to the AI masks?

[ralphlouzon]

Hi,

I often lack the possibilty to add some feather to a mask. If the mask is too harsh, which can be the case with AI masks for instance, it is rather painful to feather it "by hand" with a brush.
An additionnal feature of feathering would be IMO very handful.

[C.Cella]

I am surprised it was not asked already publicly last year.

@ralphlouzon 

By "Feather a mask" you mean "Feather an Ai Tool"

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-masking-add-controls-to-modify-mask-to-expa...

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-masking-add-controls-to-modify-mask-to-expa...

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

It was - this is now merged into the authoritative thread. 

[Emmanuel266856992t7d]

Absolutely!! This would be incredibly helpful for portrait photographers. I use the subject mask feature constantly, but if I want to decrease clarity in the background, it also blurs the edge of the person's hair, clothing, etc., which makes the photo look as if it's not properly in focus. Being able to expand and feather the selection would solve this problem.

[Emmanuel266856992t7d]

Here is an example of what I'm talking about (sorry for blown highlights - just pulling something up quickly)

The first is the original bokeh (looks kind of crunchy to me from harsh lighting):

The second is with a background mask applied and clarity pulled all the way down. You can see the bokeh looks nicer now, but the edges of her hat are all fuzzy.

The third is what I was going for – I hand-brushed away from the background mask so that the edges of her hat weren't affected. Now the bokeh looks creamier and she still appears in focus (ish - but that's my fault). This could be more easily accomplished with an expand and feather function for subject/background masking.

[JSFrench]

Please add a feather slider for the Object Selection masking tools, and possibly also options to "feather IN only" "feather OUT only" or "feather symetrical" as this would greatly improve my most frequent use case for this tool, which is isolating an object that has a tight shadow from a light background.

As the tool functions now the object selection usually includes the shadow, which is often ideal, but the selection edge near the shadow is often dotted/jagged/not smooth, and so the applied effects of the mask resembles digital clipping of information rather than a smooth transition. My hope is that feathering the mask edge would reduce those artifacts nicely.

Very happy you've added these masking tools as they often grab the exact objects intended, but these feathering refinements would greatly improve my results and help me create cleaner, more natural looking transitions that I previously could only achieve by manually brushing in a mask with an appropriate feather that can't be changed after, and would also typically take 15-20x as much time.

Thanks again!

[elisabethbls]

Hey Adobe,

    I do so love the new smart ai masking features - they have improved my life so much! I do have one request/improvement that can be made: On the 'select subject' or 'select person' options, can we please have the ability to automatically adjust/move the edge (expand or contract, feather)? I find that the ai selects the person and masks them just outside of the edge of their bodies....which can greatly diminish the natural or real look of the finished photo (making it look fake). Would love to be able to pull that edge inwards with a simple setting that can be universally applied so that the ai knows I like my masks to stop inside the edge of the subject/person.

Thank you

[C.Cella]

Expanding/contracting an existing Ai selection is not a good solution, it's a simplistic and inelegant one.

A Sky mask that has a poor bottom selection will still be have poor edges/shape when expanded/contracted.

The very detection models need to be changed as that is the real key to achieving better selections.

Also we should be given the option to use full resolution Ai masks that could/would produce better edges like in Photoshop.

While time consuming Ai selections can be improved already with a brush, to the point of perfection actually..but alas LrC has long standing history of issues connected the brush.

 The LrC team should first and foremost fix the brush tool because is the one tool that we already could use efficiently to improve our Ai selections.

.

[ralphlouzon]

Yes! After creating and AI mask (and or instance dodge the selection) we could have some issues with the edges. Feathering could be helpful.