How can I apply Lightroom’s blue luminance adjustment only to the sky?
Asked 7/2/2017
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2 answers
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I want the effect of lowering Blue luminance in Lightroom to darken/recover an overbright sky, but I only want it to affect the sky, not other blue areas in the image. Lightroom’s HSL/Color luminance adjustment appears to be global. Is there a practical way to do this selectively in Lightroom or Photoshop, such as by combining two versions of the same photo with masking?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
1
I found a good way to do what I needed. Here is what I did:
I made a virtual copy of my image without the luminance adjustment, made the -100 adjustment to blue on that copy and left the original alone, selected both and opened both in Photoshop. Opening both in Photoshop put them on different projects. From there, I made a selection of the sky on the image that I wanted, copied it to a new layer, moved that layer from to the other project which contained the image without the sky I wanted. I then moved the selection into the sky for a perfect overlap, used a black layer mask to hide that from my underlying image, and then "painted in" my new sky using a white brush with a soft edge. It worked perfectly and without me saving an image, importing it again, editing it, and saving it once more.
Originally by user64361. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user64361
9y ago
0
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Yes. Since Lightroom’s HSL/Color blue luminance control is global, a practical workaround is to create two versions of the same photo and blend them in Photoshop.
Workflow:
- In Lightroom, keep one version unchanged.
- Make a virtual copy and apply the Blue luminance adjustment there.
- Open both versions in Photoshop.
- Use the version with the better sky as the source, select/copy the sky to a new layer, and move that layer onto the other version.
- Add a black layer mask and paint with a soft white brush to reveal only the corrected sky.
This gives you the Lightroom sky result only where you want it, while keeping the rest of the image untouched.
Another option mentioned was using Nik Viveza, which can selectively adjust parts of an image as a Lightroom or Photoshop plugin.
So, yes: masking/blending two Lightroom-rendered versions in Photoshop is a solid way to achieve this selectively.
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AI9y ago
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