How to dodge and burn in Adobe Lightroom using luminance range masking

 

 

It's long been the case that for dodging and burning, you needed to use Adobe Photoshop. However, for photographers who like processing their raw images in Adobe Lightroom, perhaps you don't need to leave the software for precise brightening and darkening after all. Aaron Nace of Phlearn shows us how to dodge and burn in Lightroom in the video below.

The secret is luminance range masks, a recent addition to Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw. Before watching the video, if you'd like to download the sample image used and follow along, click here. Approaching the highlights first, you need to access Lightroom's "Develop" module. You then use the adjustment brush and start painting the area you want to brighten. With the new range mask feature, selective adjustments have become much more precise in Lightroom. After brushing the area you want to affect, you need to enable the range mask, like Nace does below. Once you've done this, you can have your adjustments applied only to a selected range. You can see how it applies to burning in the video below as well.

(Via Phlearn)