Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: nemophoto on January 05, 2023, 06:07:00 pm
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Early on, the new masking tool seemed great in LR, especially the "select subject". Over the past month, I have noticed the inability to find and mask a subject. In some instances, it can't find the subject at all. In others, it creates a "mask", but there is nothing in that mask. I have tried it with a multitude of images: where the subject is clearly in focus the background out, significant color differences between the subject and background, and various permutations of those things.
In Photoshop, selecting Select>Subject yields the same end result for many of the same images. I never had that issue previously. My Lightroom is the latest version. I then experiment with some scenics. It could seem to find the sky. Even trying to select a lone tree against a neutral sky/background yields a very weird selection. In Lightroom, I literally tried it on more than 25 different photos, ones where the photo had an obvious person, and others where it was an object. Frequently, if it DID find something, the masking was weird and incomplete: selecting part of a shirt, an out-of-focus tree, part of an arm. It doesn't seem to matter if the image is 4MP, 30MP, or 45 or 50MP.
I went all the way back to PS 2021 to find Select subject that actually worked for me. When I chose the subject from a recent commercial shoot, I got the marching ants. With 2023 and 2022 I did not. I got nothing. I opened the same tiff file in Lightroom and again, it failed to select a subject.
Anyone else come across this anomoly? Makes me glad I always keep older copies of PS on my system. I wish I had done teh same with Lightroom.
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I did screenshots of a photo from a recent shoot where the subject is very clearly defined. I used Select>Subject in both PS 2021 and PS 2023. After selecting the subject, I used the Quick Mask option to show what had been selected. As can be seen, the subject was never selected in PS 2023 (the entire frame shows a red mask) whereas in PS 2021 the subject has clearly been selected.
I decided to use the same image in Lightroom 12.1 and in Develop, I tried to create a mask using "Subject". As can be seen, LR selected a weird block near the model's feet... and nothing else.
And this is why I hate the Adobe subscription model; they bring out new versions and break other things in the process. I did not have this issue in either of the older versions of Photoshop or Lightroom.
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I've not used subject masking much, but the other AI masking options don't seem to have changed much with the newer version. It seems there are some images that the AI just can't get at all, others that it masks amazingly well.
For images where subject masking doesn't work, you may find object masking a better option. Fractionally more time consuming, but I've found it pretty good on everything I've tried it on so far.
Worth watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo8Sidcm3nI
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Perhaps you could post the image so we can investigate and see if we get the same results?
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Perhaps you could post the image so we can investigate and see if we get the same results?
Indeed, post a DNG from the raw, with all your corrections to something like Dropbox.
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Sure, I can post a DNG within the next few days and create a link. The above images were taken from my final TIFF for the client, but the results were the same in LR. The strange thing is, PS 2021, as a counterpoint, has no difficulty picking up and isolating a subject. Neither PS 2022 nor 2023 can seem to do this "simple" task. By the same token, Topaz Mask AI can silhouette the subject I showed without a problem if you select "Mask Subject". Opening the original RAW image in PS 2021, using Camera RAW, I received the error "Couldn't fins a subject to select". But once that image is opened in Photoshop, using Select>Subject, it has no problem finding the subject.
Doing the same thing in PS 2023 with ACR yielded the same result. If I try masking based on ACR seeing a person in the frame, it creates a mask as a rectangular block. Trying the same Select>Subject in PS 2023 yielded the error "Couldn't find a subject to select. There might not be prominent objects in the image". This is clearly not the case. I chose to zero in on this particular image because it would have extraneous details as might be found in a location shot.
Clearly, the AI Select Subject is broken and has been for a while. Clearly, it's broken in ACR which is why it isn't working in Lightroom since both are generally the same RAW engine.
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In PS the Subject AI mask processing can be done locally or via the Cloud (supposed to be more accurate). The change is in the Preferences, explained here towards the end of the video
https://jkost.com/blog/2022/11/using-the-object-selection-tool-to-quickly-edit-images-in-photoshop.html
Might be worth checking both options on several instances of PS.
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Thanks. I'll take a look. But honestly, I HATE anything that forces me to use a tool or app online. It's the reason I use a computer, not a phone (for instance). I can't imagine why "the Cloud" would be, or should be, more accurate. Will be interesting to see the video.
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Thanks. I'll take a look. But honestly, I HATE anything that forces me to use a tool or app online. It's the reason I use a computer, not a phone (for instance). I can't imagine why "the Cloud" would be, or should be, more accurate. Will be interesting to see the video.
You're missing the increase in capabilities by doing so. Which is part of your complaint about the feature.
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Thanks. I'll take a look. But honestly, I HATE anything that forces me to use a tool or app online. It's the reason I use a computer, not a phone (for instance). I can't imagine why "the Cloud" would be, or should be, more accurate. Will be interesting to see the video.
It's invisible to you. Just check the box and see if you get better (or worse!) masking.
The whole (short) video is worth checking out. Julieanne is a great teacher.
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I tried the object selection tool. Same incredibly poor results. For an obvious subject, it just displaces a box, regardless of whether I use the lasso or rectangle. Here's what it did on another studio shot. It was originally a 6' wide instore poster, so I reduced it to 24" wide. Still lots of detail for selection at that size and res. I tried using the "cloud" option and it just reverted back to "device". Either way, very poor results for something that should be easy. No such issues with PS 2021. Yes, Julianne is a great teacher, however, in my case, PS does not act as expected or desired.
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Can you explain: “It was originally a 6' wide instore poster, so I reduced it to 24" wide”.?
It's a raw right? How did you reduce it?
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Hi,
I just downloaded the image you attached and run object selection on PS (latest version, 24.1.0), and it did a fair job at first try. A few details to be corrected, but overall is good.
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Can you explain: “It was originally a 6' wide instore poster, so I reduced it to 24" wide”.?
It's a raw right? How did you reduce it?
The was the final TIFF image for the client. All the work had been done on the RAW in LR and refined in PS and upressed for final printing by the client. I reduced it to 24" wide to try the object selection tool as outlined in the video since I wanted to see what the supposed advantage was for Cloud processing, I didn't want a 935MB file to work with, so I reduced the size. It was reduced using PS resize. The original upres was Topaz Gigapixel.
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The was the final TIFF image for the client. All the work had been done on the RAW in LR and refined in PS and upressed for final printing by the client.
Why are you not testing subject masking in LR & PS on raw for which it's designed?
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Hi,
I just downloaded the image you attached and run object selection on PS (latest version, 24.1.0), and it did a fair job at first try. A few details to be corrected, but overall is good.
Glad it worked for you. I used the exact same image (the screenshot) and ended up with the same weird rectangle around the model, but no accurate selection.
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I tried the image in LR (latest version) and got a good result too. Can you try another computer? There might be something wrong with your current install.
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Why are you not testing subject masking in LR & PS on raw for which it's designed?
For the reason that it was a total failure when I was originally working in LR and then tried it in PS. See the attached screenshots working with the RAW in both LR and PS. I then opened and reduced the size of the TIFF in PS 2021 and used "Object Select" rectangle tool and... it obviously worked. So, as my post originally indicated, there's something broken (at least on my computer) trying to use the Object Select tool or Subject Select in PS 2022 and PS 2023. This is the reason I often keep multiple generations of PS on my computer. I probably should do the same with Lightroom.
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For the reason that it was a total failure when I was originally working in LR and then tried it in PS.
Again, upload a raw and let us examine what may be the issue here. Including using Adobe servers to do the job.
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So, here are the RAW as DNG files exported from LR.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsdO8IVEPnCcgZIhz1y5ZB0PUHoPaA?e=j8dSCQ
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsdO8IVEPnCcgZIgSVelIN8spTgRCw?e=WX9yEU
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Got one of the raws (Nice shote BTW), removed your masks, made two variations using two different processes:
1. Select Subject is the first (screen capture is the 2nd however).
2. Select Object (using a brush) is the 2nd attempt.
The first isn't bad at all! There is one area above the subject to the left wall that needs to be removed. Simple.
The 2nd is nearly prefect. This is created by brushing (two sizes so two masks) on the woman.
I find both masks to be absolutely amazing considering each took about 30 seconds or less to produce!
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This is a confirmation of just how broken the Object selection tool is, at least on my computer. I was putting together a pallet chart of paint colors for a client to compare three different shades of beige to paint a cyc. Each color is on a different layer and I'm modifying each one with the paint manufacturer's RGB value. I was going to simply select it with the Magic Wand, then thought I'd see what would happen if I tried to select it with the Object Selection tool. You can see how poorly this turned out. I'm going to try these different things on my wife's 27" iMac and on my laptop.
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This is a confirmation of just how broken the Object selection tool is, at least on my computer.
Seems that way (on your computer).
It works amazingly well on the image you provided on mine. Let's stick with that OK. So what's the difference?
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I'm having no problem creating full figure subject masks on either files in both LRC and PS (latest versions, Win 10)
I opened and deleted all the masks that came with the files then selected Subject for masking and got the whole person all 4 times (both files, ACR and LRC).
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I had no problem either. LR (12.1) not quite as good as PS (24.1). PS pretty accurate, LR included 1 small stray area on each image (ones that could be brushed away in a couple of seconds).
Maybe something corrupt in the OP's installation?
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Finally!! Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I resorted to uninstalling my graphics drivers and all older drivers as well and did a clean driver install after rebooting a couple of times to make sure the plain vanilla loaded instead. Then I did a fresh download of the most recent graphics driver from AMD and installed, and rebooted. Now, I'm able to create a subject mask without issues in LR. Checking PS, I opened the TIFF files and did object selection and it worked. (Select Subject also works and actually works a bit better, at least for people.)
So, it seems the root of these issues was related to a corrupt graphics driver. It wasn't corrupt enough to cause everything else to malfunction on my computer, just certain tasks, and functions. Ninety-five percent of everything was fine. Some of the weirdness included sending an image from PS 2023 to Luminar AI (used as a plugin) would work. The same image would not open in Luminar Neo. Now it does.
Anyway, Thanks for the help.