How I Brighten Highlights in Reflections Using Lightroom’s Advanced Masks
In this Lightroom walkthrough, I show you two reliable methods for brightening highlights in a lake reflection without washing out shadows, muddying midtones, or shifting the blues in the water. With rippled water, precision is everything — so I combine a Color Range Mask, Luminance Range Mask, and Brush to target only the reflected subject and keep the rest of the scene untouched.
If you’ve ever struggled to control reflections or wondered how to push brightness exactly where you want it, this tutorial is a game-changer. Clean, natural, believable adjustments — all with Lightroom’s masking tools. Let’s dive in!
Scott Davenport is a landscape photographer and photo educator and based in San Diego, California. He leads photo workshops, writes photo books, hosts podcasts, makes tutorial videos, and feels weird referring to himself in the 3rd person.
He also can't help getting his feet wet photographing at the beach.