Lightroom Masking Reimagined

This will be the first major change in Lightroom Masking since the introduction of local masks in Lightroom 2. I’ve covered these features in a number of past blog posts, my favorite being the Radial Filter. The local adjustments, called filters,  are being properly renamed as masks, which is what they’ve always been.

Usually I can’t say anything about the upcoming versions of Lightroom due to a non-disclosure agreement all prerelease testers must sign. But in this week’s Adobe Blog post, Josh Bury, Senior Computer Scientist on the Adobe Camera Raw team tips their hand. This updated version of Lightroom Masking will be released on October 26, 2021.

Required Reading

Josh Bury shows, in detail, exactly what the redesign will look like and what it does! Follow this link for his in-depth preview of these new features.  https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2021/09/28/from-the-acr-team-masking-reimagined.html#gs.c7vpc1

These upcoming improvements rival the sophistication of Photoshop adjustment layers, but without the option of multiple image layers. So sign up for the AdobeMax 2021 conference (it’s free!) and get to see these new features in action because I’m not allow to (yet).

The new Masks panel will look very different in the next version of Lightroom. Masking (formally known as filters) will support a large number of mask groups using different masking tools