# Invert Cumulative Mask?



## reidthaler (Oct 28, 2021)

My thinking is that I can make a subject mask, then refine by adding and subtracting with the brush, then invert the cumulative mask, but it doesn't work than way.  I can only invert individual sub masks.  I can select the subject, invert than, then refine with = and - brushes.  Is my experience correct or am I missing something?

Thanks,

Reid


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 28, 2021)

What you need to do is the following. Invert the base subject mask, and if you refined that mask by adding or subtracting brush strokes, then do not *invert* these masks, but right-click on them and *toggle add/subtract* (so if the mask was added, then change it to subtract and vice versa).


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## reidthaler (Oct 28, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> but right-click on them and *toggle add/subtract* (so if the mask was added, then change it to subtract and vice versa).


It seems like I don't have to do these additional steps after I invert the original mask, I can just add  or subtract from it.

In which case, I'm not sure when I would use the convert to functions on the sub masks


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## jjlad (Oct 28, 2021)

That is so counter-intuitive it astonishes me that Adobe has saddled us with it.
Having "sub" masks for every tool operation is a workflow killer. Having to name them to keep track of what you are doing and then for those names to not even show up all the time, is madness. 
It is like needing a new pail of paint and new brush for every board when painting siding on a house and on top of that having to inscribe and record a name on each one of them. I've been trying this for hours and for me it is far simpler to flip the image into Photoshop and edit it there. Unfortunately that needs a flat tiff back to LR and the procession of changes will be lost since the PS file would be impractically large. 
As the brush selections kept improving in the earlier versions I learned to do much of what I wanted with brushes and gradients in LR and it was so simple! This convoluted, counter-intuitive make work project is just plain frightening. 

The original goal of Lightroom was to provide photographers with an EFFICIENT and STREAMLINED  image cataloging, processing and delivery system. From a workflow standpoint has been severely hurt by this. From what I can tell after working for hours in it, a 1500 image shoot that I could process in 4 or 5 hours with 10.2 will take me a week with this, and I'll be in a straight jacket at the end of it. Of course things will get easier as I'll lose the customers due to slow delivery, and the need for efficient workflow will reduce quickly!

Is there a quick way to roll back to 10.2 and just live with that until this masking process is streamlined into a more logical workflow?


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## reidthaler (Oct 28, 2021)

When Lightroom Classic "updates" in makes a copy of your catalog and updates that, so you could go back to that and uninstall v11 and go back to 10.4.

 I find that if I first try to work with sky or subject selections and then invert or intersect with the radial mask,  or brush, I can get what I want


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## jjlad (Oct 28, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> What you need to do is the following. Invert the base subject mask, and if you refined that mask by adding or subtracting brush strokes, then do not *invert* these masks, but right-click on them and *toggle add/subtract* (so if the mask was added, then change it to subtract and vice versa).


How would that mask get attached to the duplicated mask if you only invert the subject mask or if you want to duplicate the subject mask and all its sub masks to perform a different operation on them?


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## reidthaler (Oct 28, 2021)

It does.  When I dupe the Subject mask, it also dupes the sub masks


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 29, 2021)

reidthaler said:


> It seems like I don't have to do these additional steps after I invert the original mask, I can just add  or subtract from it.
> 
> In which case, I'm not sure when I would use the convert to functions on the sub masks


Of course not. You only need to do this *if you have already fine tuned with submasks*, before you invert it. Your gut feeling would probably be that in this case you can simply invert all the submasks one by one (because there is no “Invert all” button), but that does not work. If you invert a brush mask, then the result is that the entire image gets masked, except for the brush strokes. That is obviously not what you want. What you want is that what you *added* to the mask when the subject was masked, is now *subtracted* because now the background is masked.


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## Roelof Moorlag (Oct 29, 2021)

jjlad said:


> and for me it is far simpler to flip the image into Photoshop and edit it there


I'm not very familiar with Photoshop and so i'm very glad these options are now available in Lightroom so i don't have to leave it. A timesaver for me.


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## jjlad (Oct 29, 2021)

reidthaler said:


> It does.  When I dupe the Subject mask, it also dupes the sub masksView attachment 17343


I don't get that option at all. Tried for 20 minutes and I can't duplicate what you are showing





Is there a setting that has to be tweaked for that to show up? As you can see the menu that comes up for me either by right clicking or by clicking on the 3 little dots, shows Copy but it is greyed out and Ctrl+C does not work either. Even if it did I'm not sure where it would get pasted.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 29, 2021)

If you compare the screenshots, then you’ll see that Reid copied the total mask, while you are trying to copy the subject component only.


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## jjlad (Oct 29, 2021)

Thanks John, but it makes no difference. For me, that menu option doesn't come up anywhere:




Looks like he's already made a copy of Mask1 and its called Mask 1 Copy.  I get nowhere with that. There is no copy option anywhere for me.


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## jjlad (Oct 29, 2021)

I have over 12 hours invested in this thing now and am getting absolutely nowhere. 
I have work to do and am not getting anywhere at all.
How can I switch back to 10.2 until they fix this thing?


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## reidthaler (Oct 29, 2021)

It's right there: Duplicate "Mask 1"


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## jjlad (Oct 30, 2021)

Right. Your original image did not show that so I thought at first that was a selection you were making.
When I do that it copies all the layers and then each layer has to be redone to add/subtract elements of the mask, *after having done all that to begin with*. 
With Photoshop you could just select all those and Merge Down or Merge Selected or Group Layers. 

To have a workflow that dictates you do everything all over again without ever having the ability to merge the adjustment layers is just a smoking rubble heap!  Trying to go through this with 500 images shot in low light in a quaint old church, with lots of shadows and having had to use high iso, would be ridiculous. Far more difficult than editing them all in Photoshop. 

What I want to do could be done with normal brushes in 10.2 without this straw pile of layers, because Adobe improved the selectivity of the tools so much. They no sooner do that then put a match to the whole thing.

I honestly cannot deal with this level of complexity in a program that was created to streamline photographers workflows.
I'll call Adobe and try to get back to 10.2.  Thanks for trying to assist Reid ...but I can't do this.  Nearly 13 hours of frustration now, is more than enough.


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## reidthaler (Oct 30, 2021)

There is awkwardness with the new tools, and yes, you are right the mask changes aren't really added so you can treat them as one mask.  If you don't find the new changes useful, then just use the 3 masking tools as before and don't use Select Subject.Sky


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## jjlad (Oct 30, 2021)

Thanks again Reid.

I just watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GItx3zdodc and that helped clear my head a lot.
I'm too drained to try it today but I know the light it shed will be helpful, so I'll try it in the morning.

I sure hope Adobe re-thinks this and allows for using the Alt to subtract from masks instead of having to select other masks manually and then use anther command to keep them from affecting the mask one is working on.  They need to restore the functionality of the tools the way they worked for years except to allow for them to work on masks. Otherwise it is just needlessly awkward.

I'll let you know how I fare in the morning. Hopefully it will cheer me up.


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## reidthaler (Oct 30, 2021)

That’s a pretty good video, And I’ve watched several over the last few days. I’ve been working with the masks on the smart phone for about a month or so, and have been teaching masking on the desktop for the last couple days. Just remember that if you want to invert a mask, it’s best to start out and inverted after you select the sky or the subject then add or subtract to it as you can’t collapse them and invert the whole stack.


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## Jimmsp (Oct 30, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Of course not. You only need to do this *if you have already fine tuned with submasks*, before you invert it. Your gut feeling would probably be that in this case you can simply invert all the submasks one by one (because there is no “Invert all” button), but that does not work. If you invert a brush mask, then the result is that the entire image gets masked, except for the brush strokes. That is obviously not what you want. What you want is that what you *added* to the mask when the subject was masked, is now *subtracted* because now the background is masked.


I think this also explains what I have observed as well. I'll have to readjust my thinking.


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## prbimages (Oct 30, 2021)

jjlad said:


> They need to restore the functionality of the tools the way they worked for years


I don't understand what you are saying. It seems to me you can simply continue using the tools exactly the same way you have done in previous versions - the user interface has changed a bit, but there's nothing compelling you to use the new functionality if you don't want to. 



jjlad said:


> I'll call Adobe and try to get back to 10.2.


If I'm correct (that there's nothing different about how the old tools work), there's no need to revert to an older version. 

Even if you did want to revert to an old version, you don't need to call Adobe to do that. You can simply use the Adobe Creative Cloud app and re-install the version you want. Just make sure you have the old version of your catalog available (i.e. before you upgraded it to Version 11).

And finally, the previous version of Classic was 10.4, not 10.2. Unless there's some reason you prefer 10.2?


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 30, 2021)

prbimages said:


> And finally, the previous version of Classic was 10.4, not 10.2. Unless there's some reason you prefer 10.2?


And if you do any cloud syncing with Lightroom Classic then you'd definitely need 10.4. Syncing has now been disabled in LrClassic in anything older than 10.4.


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## jjlad (Oct 30, 2021)

prbimages said:


> I don't understand what you are saying. It seems to me you can simply continue using the tools exactly the same way you have done in previous versions - the user interface has changed a bit, but there's nothing compelling you to use the new functionality if you don't want to.
> 
> 
> If I'm correct (that there's nothing different about how the old tools work), there's no need to revert to an older version.
> ...


Thanks for the information prbimages. 
I've been at several hours today and think I'm beginning to get the hang of it. What I'm finding is that I will have to completely remap my workflow. As a standard routine:

First I need to select the subject and sky on separate masks. 
Next foreground and background as separate objects ...which they become by masking or brushing them
Then I need to go to the Sky and subtract the subject from it because it is somehow picking some of it up even though it is masked separately
Then I need to go to the Foreground, which I've brushed in, and alt-brush anything surplus and brush anything it missed. (here the alt-brush works as it used to. Before I was trying to brush out selections on the subject or sky masks and that didn't work on the original mask, but that can be done by selecting an add or subtract mask. I still think that is very cumbersome
Having all those masks created quickly as a standard workflow is speeding this up. If I could program a Lightroom Action to do the above that would sure be nice.

Things that to me. could be improved dramatically are the following:

Mask Exclusion

(I'm finding I have to subtract the subject from the sky mask because it always wants to include some of the subject, so I use a subtract mask for that. Tedious and would be better if a normal Brush was available right on the original mask (the way it was for years with the Gradient tool previously). I suspect that could even save disk space in the long run, as opposed to needing a separate layer

OR perhaps better yet ...have new masks Exclude previous masks either by default or via  choice through a checkbox to include or exclude them ...whatever, just so you don't need to make yet another mask to do that.


Mask Accuracy
When selecting a foreground or background using a brush particularly, I'm finding many many strokes of the brush at various sizes, are necessary to get all of the tonal values selected as simply brushing over it once leaves all kinds of lighter and darker areas unselected.
I flipped over to Photoshop and used the selection brush there and it does not exclude anything over which it passes, and it is just as discreet in defining the edges as the brush in LR. 


Mask Naming
When you select Subject it becomes Mask 1. Why not have its name default to Subject or Subject Group? That way it, and any sub-masks would be in that group of masks without having to rename them. Ditto for the Sky.
Similarly, if a Mask or sub-mask is created and it is a tool mask (e.g. Gradient or Brush ...name it automatically as Brush Gr 1, Grad Gr 1 etc., so the user doesn't have to rename things. That way everything would be quick and clear. Even for training videos etc., the whole mask management issue would be more streamlined, easier to teach and easier to comprehend

I'm seeing this can and will work. The selection logic is truly amazing. *That video I linked to earlier really lifted the veil for me! *
Now that I'm using it the above suggestions would really make the whole experience more user friendly, at least for me. I know I was pretty User-Unfriendly to start with because no videos I'd watched until then, were clear at all. Some videos even showed making brushes larger or smaller using the bracket keys. I don't even do that in Photoshop. There, selecting Alt+Right Mouse button and sliding the mouse left or right, seems much more practical.


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## jjlad (Oct 30, 2021)

Sorry ...in my section above entitled Mask Naming I should have said:

Similarly, if a Mask or sub-mask is created and it is a tool mask (e.g. Gradient or Brush) name it automatically as Brush 1 or Grad 1 etc.. It would automatically be clear as to what it applies to because it would fall under a clearly named group.​
One other thing not noted above is:

Pin Visibility
It would be nice if at the image level, even without the mask panel being open, the H key worked to show/hide all pins, so that any pin could be selected and doing so would open that adjustment mask directly, all ready to work with. 
Currently pins don't seem become visible unless one is in the Mask Panel . To me it would be nice if all mask pins were made visible or hidden using the H key, regardless of whether the mask panel was open, and that clicking them would immediately open that mask to work on.

All these suggestions probably wouldn't mean much to a landscape photographer. For sports, event and wedding photographers, however, speeding up the workflow would be beneficial since hundreds, even thousands images may be involved. Now that new cameras shoot 10-30 frames per second, so much time gets spent just seeing images the first time, then rating and selecting images for further editing ...that streamlining the workflow wherever possible becomes important. My camera only shoots 7 fps and even at that speed, workflow efficiency in post is important.


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## jjlad (Oct 30, 2021)

One more thing ...perhaps a solution to the Mask Accuracy problem. I first selected the edges of the desired selection with 'Auto Mask' turned on.
Then I turned that off and went over the rest of the desired selection and everything got picked up on the first pass! Much better! I had not known that the Auto Mask feature would eliminate tonal values but I guess that is needed to make it discern edges correctly. Now I know!


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## jjlad (Oct 30, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> And if you do any cloud syncing with Lightroom Classic then you'd definitely need 10.4. Syncing has now been disabled in LrClassic in anything older than 10.4.


Thanks Jim. My mind was just spaghetti yesterday. I was up to date before, but just thought it was 10.2 and since that's gone now, I couldn't check it through the program. As my above posts note, I'm slowly learning to ride this bicycle. I'll be on trainer wheels awhile but will get there.


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## reidthaler (Oct 28, 2021)

My thinking is that I can make a subject mask, then refine by adding and subtracting with the brush, then invert the cumulative mask, but it doesn't work than way.  I can only invert individual sub masks.  I can select the subject, invert than, then refine with = and - brushes.  Is my experience correct or am I missing something?

Thanks,

Reid


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## reidthaler (Oct 30, 2021)

Of course there are no Actions in Lightroom Classic.  I tried to make preset, and it still may be worth a 2nd look, but when I did, it really didn't do much except to say the mask needed to re-computated, so you click the mask and it does.  Why it doesn't just do so automatically, I don't know.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 30, 2021)

reidthaler said:


> Of course there are no Actions in Lightroom Classic.  I tried to make preset, and it still may be worth a 2nd look, but when I did, it really didn't do much except to say the mask needed to re-computated, so you click the mask and it does.  Why it doesn't just do so automatically, I don't know.


The reason it doesn’t is that you could apply the preset to a selection of hundreds of photos, and then it would take far too much time to be practical.


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## reidthaler (Oct 30, 2021)

Well, the could add a check box:
Click here to grind your system to a halt.

Seriously, it would be nice to have the option.  I was thinking a mask stack with + and - brush masks.  It may be worth a try to save a few clicks, but with the Subject/Sky masks, I don't know if they need to be refined until _after _I create the mask, and I don't think I can create a preset for only add/subtract masks


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## Jimmsp (Oct 31, 2021)

jjlad said:


> I'm slowly learning to ride this bicycle. I'll be on trainer wheels awhile but will get there.


It sounds like you are doing pretty good. Some of us are still walking, hoping to be running soon.


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