Hi, can you add an edit to one of the standard LRT masks (e.g., linear gradient) to just select the sky? Will it cause a problem with editing?

Thanks

On every mask in LR11 you can add multiple selectors now (be default LRTimelapse creates every mask with one selector, either a linear or a circ gradient).

But generally in Lightroom, every mask can hold several selectors (like linear, circular, sky select, range etc.).
Have a look at the masks in Lightroom and you'll understand what I mean.

You can add additional selectors to the predefined masks, the individual parameters of those selectors (location etc.) won't get animated, but the editing tools (Exposure etc.) on the mask itself will.

It's important to add any selectors on the very first keyframe so that they get populated to all images during the workflow.
That way you can also use "select sky". But selection will be static, only the editing tools will get animated.

This post was last modified: 2021-11-11, 23:21 by timestretcher.

Just to clarify…when you say the Select Sky selection will be static and only the editing tools will get animated, does that mean Select Sky is probably only usable in a time lapse where the composition is static, because Select Sky cannot be recalculated by LRTimelapse from one frame to the next frame if the sky outline changes, due to camera movement or objects moving through the frame that might temporarily alter the sky outline?

In other words, I am looking to confirm that any AI-based masks such as Select Sky and Select Subject should not be applied to any masks that are to be animated with LRTimelapse.

LRTimelapse cannot trigger recalculation of such masks, and also personally I think you would see artifacts in the final video, if the masks would be recalculated for every frame, therefore I think it doesn't really make sense and never tested this.

As I said, LRTimelapse will by default populate any selections set on the first frame to the whole sequence when doing the auto transition.
What you can animate is the editing settings of the masks (not the shapes or positions of additional selections).

If you want to try to reapply the select sky to every image you might try to set the selection on one of the predefined masks on the first frame when starting to edit the keyframes in Lightroom and before doing any other editing. Then use the Lightroom Sync-Tool to bring this to all other frames of the sequence (use the "merge" option), maybe Lightroom recalculates the selection then on every frame. I don't know, because I never tried this.
After that you can do the regular keyframe editing.