4 minutes ago, Jurgen said:

I haven’t explored that technique in depth yet, so I’ll definitely take a closer look at the Tony Kuyper tools.

I assume you know that luminance masks are also possible with PS's built-in tools - although of course not as convenient as T. Kuyper's actions.

6 minutes ago, Jurgen said:

The tricky part is often getting clean selections, especially when there isn’t much contrast between the subject and the background.

That's why I still use the brush tool quite often.😁

@waso yes brush and luminance are both quite important. In my app I included the following mask types did I miss something?

Looks pretty complete to me...

Maybe add a 'sky' for split shots, although you could probably invert the 'water' mask instead.

But perhaps the other photographers have more ideas.

@waso Yeah you are right I didn’t have split shots in mind. While invertinf a water mask would work well adding a sky mask would add an extra comfort.

1 hour ago, Jurgen said:

@jyuny1

Thanks for sharing your workflow!

That’s an interesting approach, especially when travelling for diving. Being able to import RAW files directly on an iPad and have everything synced to the cloud must be really convenient when you want to travel light.

I didn’t realize that Lightroom Classic only syncs Smart Previews to the cloud rather than the original RAW files. That’s definitely something to keep in mind.

Personally, I still prefer working on a desktop, especially when it comes to detailed masking and selective adjustments, but I can see the advantages of your setup when travelling.

It's only smart preview uploaded to Adobe Cloud when you import and sync your raw file from Lightroom classic desktop.

The problem is if you used to import raw file via Lightroom classic desktop, that will be a huge problem if you want to migrate your libary to another disk.

Lightroom(both iPadOS, Desktop, iOS) is the only way to upload and access original raw file via Adobe Cloud

Edited October 21Oct 21 by jyuny1

8 hours ago, Jurgen said:

@Chris Ross

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Chris!

Your approach with luminosity masks sounds really interesting, especially for adjusting shadows, highlights and midtones separately. I haven’t explored that technique in depth yet, so I’ll definitely take a closer look at the Tony Kuyper tools.

I mainly use masking underwater for selective sharpening and noise reduction, but also for adjusting specific areas of an image independently. The tricky part is often getting clean selections, especially when there isn’t much contrast between the subject and the background.

It’s interesting that you still use CS6 together with Capture One. It’s a good reminder that newer software isn’t necessarily better for every workflow! 🙂

Best,
Jurgen

Yes selections can be tricky , I find for my purposes that absolutely clean selections are not vital in most cases and the ability to feather the mask hides a lot of faults. Usually I sharpen some in Capture One so the subject only needs a light lick of sharpening in the final jpeg and Noise reduction I rarely find necessary. I try not to use selections for independent processing - unless it is very subtle the selection stands out to my eyes. This is mainly around producing images for web use, printing requires some care in preparation, but most of that is covered by only printing my best frames.

I used to sweat over processing, but I've come to learn that it's not worth my time trying to save an image- far better to work on one that is close to start with. It's so easy to suffer paralysis from over thinking the processing.