Introduction
[Glyn Dewis]: Have you ever encountered a message in Lightroom telling you that some of your AI edits need to be updated?
Well, the reason for this is that some edits, such as AI assisted masking, need to be applied in a certain order for the best results.
Hi, I'm Glyn Dewis, a photographer and photo educator, and in this tutorial, we'll take a closer look at the recommended Lightroom workflow for AI-assisted edits, as well as the AI Edit Status menu that lets you keep track of which AI edits you've applied and when they might need updating.
Understand the AI Edit Status menu
Here I am in Lightroom and I'm going to, first of all, apply an Adaptive Color profile to this image.
When I do this, we can see that it has made quite a difference to the image.
And in the Toolbar on the right-hand side of the interface, you can see the AI Edit Status icon is now visible.
This icon becomes active once any of the AI edit tools in Lightroom are used.
However, there are times when the AI Edit Status will be highlighted in yellow.
For example, if I now go to the Remove section and, using the Generative AI option, brush over these rocks here to remove them, you'll see that the AI Edit Status icon is yellow, and when we click on it, we can see that the Adaptive Profile needs to be updated.
Why the order of AI edits is important
This is because there is what's called an order of operations, and that is our recommended order in which to use the AI edits available in Lightroom to not just get the best results, but to get the most predictable results.
I'll click Update All and there you can see it is now updated and the AI Edit Status is no longer yellow, and most of the time, this is all we'd need to do.
However, if we look at this example,
Update invalidated AI edits
which is just a photograph I took of my display during a photo shoot, I'll use the Remove with the Generative AI option selected to remove the key chain just here, like so.
Then I'll go to the Distraction Removal and Reflections and put a tick to apply it.
Now we see the reflections are gone, but the AI Edit Status is yellow, warning us that pixels have been invalidated and we can see that we already moved the keychain.
The brightness of those pixels doesn't match the rest of the image.
If I click to open the AI edits, we can see it's the Remove that needs updating.
I'll click to update the Remove, which it does.
It looks good, but the actual area that has been removed looks a bit different to before.
Recommended order of operations for AI edits
To avoid potential issues like this, it's always best to follow the order of operations.
And this is it here.
Those involved are the AI functions.
Starting from the top, which would be those edits you'd apply first and working through - we have 1.
HDR.
2.
Denoise, Raw Details, Super Resolution.
3.
Distraction Removal: Reflections.
4.
Distraction Removal: People.
5.
Distraction Removal: Dust.
6.
Generative Expand.
7.
Generative Remove.
8.
Lens Blur.
9.
Lens Profile.
10.
Crop and Transform.
11.
Adaptive Profiles.
12.
Global Adjustments.
And 13.
Masking.
Looking at this list from 1 to 13 is the correct order to follow, and to avoid seeing the yellow AI Edit Status and potential unexpected results when editing.
Thinking about this reflection image example.
Firstly, I used the Remove tool with generative AI, which is number seven in the order.
I then used Distraction Removal to remove the reflections, which is higher up in the order of operations at number three.
Using the AI edits workflow in your photo editing
This is kind of like an antique painting restorer, repairing any marks on a dirty painting and then cleaning it.
The repaired marks are going to look right whilst the painting is dirty, but when cleaned, they'll stand out - rather than cleaning it first and then repairing the marks.
Let me show you what I mean.
Let's go back to this seascape image.
I'll start first of all by using Denoise on the entire image, which is number two in the order of operations.
Then I'll go to the Remove tool and Distraction Removal and Dust.
This works on the entire image to find any dust spots which you can see indicated.
Using this, I can then click on any of the dust spots it may have missed, such as here.
Next, I'll apply the Adaptive Color Profile, which works great and really makes the color and tone of the image come alive.
Now I want to make these rock structures have more detail and punch.
So I'll go to the masking section and click on Landscape and choose Mountains and Natural Ground.
And we'll combine those into one mask and click Create.
And then apply some Clarity and Texture.
That's looking superb.
But now if I, say, grab the Remove tool and use generative AI to remove this rock structure, now we see that the AI Edit Status is yellow, indicating that we have invalidated some pixels.
So I'll click to open the AI Edit Status, and we see that the invalidated pixels are on the Adaptive Profile and the Masking, because when we edited the image, we first of all applied the Adaptive Profile, then the Masking, but then went back in reverse order and used generative Remove.
So I'll click to Update All.
Lightroom will update the AI edits and the pixels are now validated.
There you go; that's the recommended order of operations when editing in Lightroom and making use of AI tools and functions.
A simple way that I used to remember this are three words: build, clean, finish.
Build on the edits that changed the base file, or rebuild the image before you do anything else.
In Lightroom, that's HDR, Denoise, Raw Details, and Super Resolution.
Clean is about removing distractions or fixing problems in the photo, and that includes Reflections Removal, People Removal, Generative Remove, Content-Aware Remove, Heal, and Clone.
And Finish are the edits that shape the final style and look of the image.
So - build, clean, finish.
Most of the time, you'll find that simply updating the AI edits will work out completely fine.
But to avoid any potential issues in your images, apply your edits using this recommended workflow.
Once again, I'm Glyn Dewis.
Thanks for watching.
