5 AI tools in Adobe Lightroom Classic to boost your photo editing

Underpinning it all is Adobe鈥檚 mighty AI muscle, trained on huge libraries of stock and publicly available images to generate new pictures. This means Lightroom Classic knows what a sky or a person looks like in a photo, and can make changes accordingly.

You can now use AI to pick out backgrounds, subjects, skies, and objects: Just click the Masking icon on the right (it looks like a circle inside a dash-lined square) and pick Subject, Sky, Background, or Objects. You鈥檒l also be able to choose Brush for more precise control over where your selection goes.

The program will shade the new masked selection in red and you鈥檒l be able to manipulate it as needed. For example, if you selected the sky, you鈥檒l be able to tweak the brightness and contrast to make your photo appear sunnier. The Masks window, which will pop up on the right of your screen when you select something,聽 is where you can switch between your masks, create new ones, and delete them. Just click the three dots next to each item to see a full set of options.

Use the sliders that pop up underneath the tool when you click it to change the size and opacity of the brush, and paint over the object you’d like to remove. Once you finish your selection, the program will get to work. Lightroom Classic automatically chooses which parts of the background to sample to replace the deleted object, but you can use Ctrl+click (Windows) or Cmd+click (macOS) to specify a particular area, such as a blue sky.

This works just like the Tone Curve tool, but it only applies to the area of the picture under the mask. Along the top of the panel you鈥檒l see selectors for the red, green, and blue channels鈥攗se them for more precise adjustments.

Choose Photo,聽 Enhance, and then check the Denoise option so that the AI can work its magic. The slider underneath the tool鈥檚 icon lets you control how aggressive it is鈥攜ou can check the preview panel on the left to see the difference before you commit any changes. When you’re happy with the level of denoising, click Enhance to confirm your choice.

To find them, go to the Presets dialog box on the left and click on the small arrows right next to it to see the full list of Adaptive Presets. For example, you can select Storm Clouds to add a bit of drama to the sky or Enhance Eyes to highlight the peers in a portrait.

Open up the Masks window via Tools and Masking to see the mask that Lightroom Classic鈥檚 AI created to apply the effect. You can edit this mask as any other, allowing you to use the brush tool to change the outline of the selection the program has come up with, for example.