Why I Stopped Fighting the Sky in Lightroom (And Built a Highlight Mask in Photoshop Instead)

Every composite I build starts with a problem I can’t solve the easy way. That’s not a complaint. That’s actually where the interesting work begins. But when the problem is a blown-out sky or a wall of white that refuses to respond to global corrections, the frustration is real, and it compounds fast. You pull down the highlights slider, the sky flattens, the gradation goes weird, and the foreground takes collateral damage it never asked for.