3 satisfying Lightroom tools

As many people, as many ways to edit a photo. Working on the basic settings - like exposure or color - is generally (almost always) necessary and universal for everyone, though of course it depends on personal taste.

But there’s also a whole range of tricks, from simple to more complex, that every photographer keeps up their sleeve and pulls out when the circumstances and photo call for it.

I have a few such tricks I use in specific situations.

Masking with inverted Subject Detection

Beyond basic masking - like linear, radial masks, or object selection - there are a few ways to make your subject pop.
Select the subject (you can use the subject or object tool), right-click and choose “invert mask,” and then “intersect mask with…”
I then pick a radial mask and mark the background behind my subject. To make the subject pop, I brighten or darken the background (depending on the situation), and also move the dehaze slider to the left.

Before:

After:

Grain

I like a good bit of grain. The era of perfectly clean, noise-free, grain-free images ended for me some time ago. Now I look for that “edge” and imperfect imperfections in my photos.
My favorite grain settings are approximately:

- Amount: 40
- Size:50
- Roughness: 65

Of course, these aren’t universal settings - I adjust them as needed. This works best in well-lit conditions, especially in street and travel photography.

Without grain:

Calibration

The Calibration panel tunes and adjusts primary channels of the reds, greens and blues.
Raising the blue color slider in Calibration panel is my cheat code for enhancing saturation on the picture, especially the warm light during golden hour. It adds a vibrant yellow tone to the image. If the photo becomes too blue, I lower the saturation of the blue in the HSL panel. There are many ways to juggle these colors - this one works great for me.

Before:

After:

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