RAW edit parts of a photo

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2020-03-05 01:20:05

Hi everyone,

I've been experimenting with raw photos and Lightroom has a feature that allows you, while working with raw data, to only change part of the photo (say someones face). As far as I can tell in Pixelmator once you have made a selection within a raw file you are prevented from making any adjustments until you convert to jpeg - which sometimes I don't want to do as I'm trying to recover details from certain parts of the image. Is this not implemented yet or am I missing something?

Thanks!
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2020-03-05 10:01:02

In Pixelmator Pro, the usual workflow for things like this is to duplicate the RAW image, apply a mask to it, then adjust the upper layer, blending the original and masked version. Of course, this could definitely be improved with a more standard photography workflow (gradient adjustments/nondestructive local adjustments) and we do have some ideas for this.
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2020-03-16 00:16:52

If I want to edit two areas on a photo, say teeth and eyes, am I able to do that on the same layer? Excuse my ignorance but I am really making an effort to transition from Lightroom, and local adjustments are the only thing holding me to the app right now.
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2020-03-16 16:08:33

Yep, you should be able to — if you apply a mask to the upper layer, you can mask out the eyes and teeth. I'd probably use the following steps:

1. Apply a layer mask
2. Fill it with black (Command-I to invert, then Control-click the mask layer > Color Adjustments > Flatten Adjustments)
3. In the Layers sidebar, click to select the image (rather than the mask) and apply some of the intended adjustments (there will be no visible changes yet)
4. In the layers sidebar, click the mask again, then choose a basic soft brush with reduced opacity and start masking in the adjustments

This probably isn't the most convenient for photography workflows, though, and it's something we'd love to improve!