Don't miss any of my videos! Subscribe now to my KZfaq Channel. In this tutorial, I demo the new Sky Masking technique that is all the rage right now and illustrate how it might not be all it's cracked up to be. Checkout Anthony Morganti's Lightroom Training - The ULTIMATE Lightroom Classic Course: www.anthonymorganti.com/ Save $10 with Discount Code: TENOFF Updated Lightroom Classic Keyboard Shortcuts PDF Download - It's FREE: www.anthonymorganti.com/ To get more info about Lightroom, go here: prf.hn/l/lGnjDBl I am an Adobe affiliate and will earn a commission if you purchase anything using the link directly above. Please read my Code of Ethics Statement: onlinephotographytraining.com/code-of-ethics/ Here is my article in my newsletter where I talk about the new method, which includes Brian Matiash's video: bit.ly/3GEOgxE Here is Tom Dominey's video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Z7WZebaK172vd4k.htmlsi=dbu-bRw4mwl3k-hf Please subscribe to my newsletter! anthonymorganti.substack.com/subscribe Contact Info: Anthony Morganti P.O. Box 805 Buffalo, New York 14220

Thanks, Tony. Excellent video.

Great explanation and good for us all to know!👍 Many often take all these new "awesome" techniques for granted and implement them in their post-processing workflow, without knowing what is happening behind the scenes. There is also the latest "hyped" discussion about the new Lightroom Desktop local mode. And questions like "Should I move from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom Local"? Can I finally get rid of working with catalogs? etc etc... Would be interesting to hear your view and general thoughts about this.

I have been experimenting with the new method for some time. My experience is that the transition between the sky and the areas outside this selection is often sharper. I will continue to use it. I made it a preset so I can compare quite quickly.

Wow! Do I ever appreciate you, Anthony. That was so clear and carefully presented.. And not easily done. I must say I wish LRC would work on the haloing issue. Topaz labs too. It often stops my editing in its tracks.

I watched Brian's video and made a preset to use his method. For most of my images, I didn't see any improvement. I'm not sold. Thanks for this video.

Thanks Tony; I agree it is "hair spliting". I think most likely will be better in some images and not in other. Overall, just how perfect is everything going to have to be? Have you printed any images to compare the two methods?

I just watched Brian;s video. Anthony, you seem to be doing it differently than Brian. Brian selects the sky twice, subtracts the second sky, then inverts. You only selected the sky once before subtracting. That may make a substantial difference in what you are getting versus Brian.

I mainly shoot landscapes and have found the 'trick' useful when shooting images where the tonal difference at the interface between the sky or background and foreground is less than 30%. That said, I've created both a Preset and an Action so it's no big deal to get a comparison in order to evaluate any impact and/or determine a processing direction.

Question: It seems to me that, in using masks, that they are applied not only in locale, but intensity, so that the mask sometimes is applied less extremely in some areas, and that manually applying a brush to some less intensely-masked areas will result in a deepening of the mask, almost like a halftone. Anyone experience this?

I feel like Adobe may of improved their sky masking since introducing it. When I first tried it, when I darkened the sky and upped the dehaze, I ended up with this band of light sky at the sky line. Could there have been some improvements?

You might try the method twice in roll - sometimes it will help.

I have to say, I still don't understand where haloing comes from. Is it just an inability of the software to decide which of the two neighbouring pixel colours to go with, so it chooses another colour altogether (often white, it would seem)? Surely just matching one or the other of the adjacent pixels would do away with the haloing. It might not give exactly the results for which one is aiming, but it would surely provide a more pleasing result than an unsightly halo? Am I missing something here? As it stands, I tend to avoid any processes that are prone to haloing because I've never found (or read or watched) a convincing method to avoid or rectify it.

My experience exactly: I never found the ‘new method’ worked as well as the original.

No its not that hyped up. Other progs have done that for years already

Seems to me to be much ado about nothing!