Master the adjustment brush
It’s arguably the most useful tonal tool Lightroom and Photoshop have to offer.
Found within both Photoshop’s Camera Raw filter and in Lightroom’s Develop Module, the Adjustment Brush is one of the most powerful tools available for making local alterations. There’s a simple two-step process for using the brush: you paint over the part of the image you want to change, then use the tonal sliders in the brush settings to adjust how that area looks.
You could, for example, paint in extra exposure to lift an area, add in negative saturation to tone down overly intense colours, or use selective Clarity to boost the texture in specific parts of the image. What’s more, you can use a combination of several tonal settings at once. So to boost the irises of our model’s eyes here, I’ve used a combination of positive Exposure, Saturation, Clarity and Shadows.
The tool also has several excellent features that let you target certain shapes or colours in the image, so you don’t have to spend ages painting precisely with the tool. Features like Auto-Mask and Range Masking enable you to quickly isolate an area for adjustment, no matter how fiddly the details.
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TONAL SLIDERS After selecting the Adjustment Brush from the toolbar in Camera Raw (or in Lightroom’s Develop Module), you’ll see the sliders to the right change to show the tool settings. The set of sliders here look very similar to those in the Camera Raw Basic Panel, but these apply only to the area defined by the Adjustment Brush. Use the sliders to make any combination of tonal adjustment you like.
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PLUS AND MINUS ICONS Before you begin painting with the Adjustment Brush, it’s usually a good idea to click the plus or minus icons next to one of the tonal sliders. This lets you begin a new adjustment and also resets all the other sliders to their default values. At this stage you don’t need to be exact with your slider figures: you can fine-tune the settings after painting with the tool if necessary.
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PINS AND MASKS Once you start painting over the image, the tool sets down a pin. This represents an Adjustment Mask overlay. Pressing Y toggles the mask overlay on or off, which shows exactly which areas have been painted over (ours is green, but you can choose any colour you like). To make a new adjustment, either click New at the top right, or click the plus or minus icons next to any slider.
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BRUSH SETTINGS Use these sliders to control the brush properties. As with all Photoshop brushes, you can press the ] and [ bracket keys to alter the brush size, or use Shift- ] or [ to change the feather (hardness) of the brush. Alternatively, right-click-drag left or right to change the size. To erase part of a mask overlay, hold Alt to switch to the Eraser. To keep the eraser and the brush the same size, untick Separate Eraser Size in the flyout menu.
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AUTO-MASK Sometimes you’ll want to precisely isolate an area or object in your image. Ticking Auto-Mask forces the tool to seek out similar colours and tones to the point first clicked on, so it snaps onto edges as you paint over an image. (Here it lets us quickly target the skin so we can soften it.) Sometimes Auto-Mask can leave a rough edge or a halo, so be sure to check the mask overlay by pressing Y to see exactly which areas are covered.
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RANGE MASKING Like Auto-Mask, this lets you target areas or tones with precision. Color lets you target specific colours within the painted area – hold Shift and click over the image to sample several colours. Luminance lets you confine the adjustment to a part of the tonal range, so you can target shadows or highlights separately. Hold Alt while dragging the Range Masking sliders for a greyscale view that shows you what’s affected.