Playing with PL9

zkarj · September 3, 2025, 7:48am

With the new masking abilities in PL9, I’ve tried out a few bird photos. I’ve been picking on ones I hadn’t attempted in LR so I am forced to approach the photo anew and not try to replicate exactly what I have already done in LR.

This was a fairly basic one.

zkarj · September 3, 2025, 9:46am

And another.

Five masks are used here.

The bird and its reflection using an AI mask — boost whites, darken shadows and blacks.
The shiny black feathers using Control Points — tone down the shine to make them look less grey.
The water using an AI mask (background) — slight exposure increase and warming.
Top left using a gradient, subtracting the bird (AI) — emphasise the light coming from that direction.
Bottom right using a gradient — darken the foreground slightly to offset the light from the top.

There was some manual brushing required to get rid of some spill where black feathers met water.

Mike_Murphy_1948 · September 3, 2025, 3:52pm

You’re picking this up faster than me! I made my first satisfactory combination of smart and control point today, but not as an intersection. For the moment I am stuck on superposition.
D6704831.ARW (39.8 MB)
D6704831.ARW.dop (11.9 KB)
Here is the result, after a tad of sharpening in TPAI