Not Even Adobe Knows My SECRET Lightroom Sky Selection Trick

It makes sense intuitively. The first selection applies a gradient/partial mask to the "bleed" areas, lets say 25% opacity. I think Adobe would argue that is a "feature" not a "bug", because they want a little bit of feathering between the sky and nearest foreground so that edits don't look too unnatural. So then when you select the second mask and invert it, you're inverting the 25% opacity parts of the image and subtracting that out so that you no longer have any "bleed". The foreground/ground parts subtract out at 100% opacity but that has no effect since your original sky mask didn't select it. So it makes sense why this technique works to get a cleaner sky selection, but likely you will have to apply other techniques like gradient intersection to make the transition from sky to ground less jarring. Kudos for finding this technique, you have another subscriber.

Brian, I learned this from you a while back. Let's stop telling other people so we can pretend we just have better masking skills.😎

Thanks Brian! I’ve also had good luck with Select Sky / Intersect with Select Sky (after clicking on 3 dots on right hand side).

Thanks Brian. I have been using this sky subtract-inverse method for months. But my thanks go to you for the preset idea. Implemented and already have saved several minutes as I edit a balloon fiestival pics. Thanks again!!!

Great Brian, many thanks for sharing this technique. It also works to separate a subject from the background more accurately. 🙏🏽

Wow Brian, thanks for sharing that with us, I was just editing some photos and was very unhappy that the mask was bleeding on to the non sky area, I was doing the subtract with a brush which was time consuming and nor very precise. This is a game changer, have subscribed to your channel, I am sure you have some great knowledge to impart. Big Thanks!

This is one of the best tips about masking I have ever seen. Thanks for sharing this!👍

Brilliant tutorial thanks! I even tried your method on portrait hair and eyes and it is so much better than the first pass with AI.

Great tip Brian - I've certainly not seen anyone discussing this technique elsewhere.

Great video, can’t wait to try this

Brilliant! Thank you for sharing

Wow! Very helpful, learned so much – didn't know I could make mask presets. Thanks!

I remember hearing you talk about this in a previous vid. Didn't write it down and lost sight of it. Now set up as a preset and tried on a few photos. very nice. Thanks - tim

I remember seeing this on that video you mentioned and have been doing it ever since. It’s so awesome!! Thanks!!

I've been using this for a few weeks (perhaps because I saw your video or another) and it is great. I hadn't seen the preset idea before and it is very good time saving step. Thanks!

Thankyou I have made the preset for both the sky and the inverted version for the landscapeand it works brilliantly.

This is a brilliant trick. Thanks so much for sharing it.

I definitely saw you mention this in that other video a long time ago and have been using it since, thank you!

Such a great trick and even better that I can use it in LR mobile on the iPad. Super stoked. Thanks man!

Amazing! Thank you Brian for this much needed video.💯