Sorry to say but, unless I am missing something, the AI Sky mask is nowhere near as precise as a Control Line.
No local adjustments…
Control Line…
AI Sky Mask…
Now they look similar at this level of zoom but, if I zoom in to 50% and show the mask coverage, I get the following.
Control Line…
AI Sky Mask…
Conclusion is that the AI mask doesn’t seem very good at separating details out our the sky.
And there is no option to draw/erase straight lines (possible in PS for ages).
Thanks. A good reminder.
I used to jump into LR/PS for object masking thinking that was the path to masking success. But, with your examples, learned to use the traditional PL tools to better effect. TBH, the primary use case for me is to simplify Auto brush or extremely complex CP and negative CPs. No need for LR/PS. Yay!
They have unfortunately gone the Ai way but with a poor implementation imo. The competition is far ahead. They have admitted to me that the auto masking for sky is limited and that you need to use control lines or whatever to clean up! They also admit that subject auto masking is very limited in what it will recognise as a subject.
Just a clearer example of how poor the Sky AI mask is, compared with both Control Line and Luminosity Mask…
Sky AI…
Luminosity Mask…
Control Line…
The Control Line seems to be, by far the best, needing no “touch-ups”, whereas the Luminosity Mask seemed to need a couple of minor touches.
The advantage of AI processing is in speed and batch processing capabilities. It would have been innovative if they trained their model to automatically place the control lines and points with the appropriate settings, it would be the best of the both worlds.
DxO acknowledge this and say it is expected behaviour - they recommend adding to the mask with control points etc. Seems to me that I might as well just use a control line and be done with it. The masking does not recognise buildings as subjects either.
Totally agreed.
Another anomaly…
Here is the image with the masks freshly created but not yet renamed…
Now, I name the masks…
To my mind, this tells me that these are two independent sub-masks, which can each have their own adjustments.
Unfortunately, as you can see, even though only the “Ciel” sub-mask is selected, both masks are shown as highlighted in the image.
The palette UI clues are telling me one thing but the image UI clues are telling me another.
Further weirdities…
Image with two sub-masks, both containing mask and sub-masks hidden…
Main mask unhidden…
Main mask and Ciel sub-mask unhidden…
All three (mask and sub-masks) unhidden…
Route sub-mask hidden…
All masks unhidden (again)…
Finally, add a Control Point sub-mask…
Hmmm. Something screwy this way comes 
But this is what I actually wanted to achieve…
… except I expected to be able to have a different adjustment on each sub-mask.
Or is that unreasonable?
It seems that the containing mask is summing all the changes from the sub-masks 
Addenda
Hide and reshow Control Point…
Hiding and unhiding the Control Point actually returns to some sense of normality, if such a thing exists.
C1 in similar situations would not do any better with the trees (not sure about LR). I expect to use the magic brush (both + and -) to refine the selection in these cases or a control line in PL as you do. I wish Sky Selection worked better, but seems to be a tough nut to crack. I am pleasantly surprised when it works.
Yes, sky masking is tough. LR takes several steps to get the edges right and can sometimes miss the sky showing though leaves. PhotoLab’s Control Line and Luminance masks seem like a good solution.
So this is what PhotoLab 9 seems capable of achieving automatically on this image of the Brighton Royal Pavilion, please note the tree on the left and right, avoided by PhotoLab 9, and the open (sky) spaces in the minarets
This is what ACDSee 2025 achieves with sky replacement , with a sky chosen to show the extent of the masking.
Issues with the trees to the left and right but the sky opening in the minarets have been spotted and changed
This is Luminar Neo
This is ON1 2025
I am not necessarily interested in Sky Replacement more in proper single step masking prior to sky adjustment.
PhotoLab is at least making a start but I feel that they could have done better, particularly when I compare the results to Neo and ON1 and actually quite like the results with ON1 sky replacement, with the image I used for the test.
P1012188.RW2 (23.1 MB)
The image was taken with my GX9, slightly less conspicuous, only a bit with a 12-200 (24-400) lens attached, than my G9 for street photography!?
While I understand you well … use ALT + Brush, which acts as “universal” eraser.
In fact, if you look at the bottom bar of the window, you will see a switch for “positive” brush and “negative” brush
I have put in a formal support request, citing this thread
To add …
A mask (layer) with the blackish square is the master
Individual areas can now be selected (or subtracted/deselected) via the corresponding sublayers
That is …
I do hope DxO can figure out the inconsistencies with the (general) mask overlay as shown here …
