By: Erik Vlietinck
Wed, August 24, 2005 - 11:36:01
Pros: 0

Score: ">

Masking in Photoshop should be easy: there’s the Magic Wand, the Magnetic selection tool, and the Extract filter. And still, masking can be quite a chore. Mask Pro, previously by Extensis, and now in Genuine Fractals’ hands, can make the job easier. But British Vertus‘ Fluid Mask makes it both easier and faster.

At first sight, Fluid Mask reminded me of Mask Pro. There are brushes for Keep masks and for Delete masks. Fluid Mask also has a Complex Mask brush. The latter serves to create a boundary between the clear cut keep mask and delete mask. But Fluid Mask goes much further than this.

Fluid Mask works just like the human eye. It enables you to create masks using an editable Image Information Layer (IIL) and some neat tricks that make working with it about three times as fast as with other masking software.

The magic lies with the Region Editor and the IIL. The procedure is as follows: you brush the keep mask in an area where the colour is clearly what you want to keep. You can either use the expanded region brush or the accurate brush. Personally, I would not recommend using the global brush as it will fill too large an area at once to be very useful.

The global brush with limited radius is a better choice. The brush stroke will expand into all areas with the same colour. You can repeat this process with all the colours that are clear to your eye to be either keep or delete areas.

Once this has been done, almost every image will have three mask areas: a keep area, a delete area and a complex mask area in those zones where the colours are not that easy to discern. Most of the time, some areas will not be tagged as either keep or delete at all. If you have difficulties brushing in these areas because the colours seem to blend too much, it’s time for the Region Editor.

The Region Editor is sheer magic. Make a selection on the image, where the colours blend over. Then activate the Region Editor and an Unassigned tab will show you which colours are difficult to discern. Now all you have to do is select colour swatches that you know from sight should be added to the keep, delete or complex mask. The result is a faster, more efficient workflow.

If the colour problems in the area between the object to be masked and the rest of the photograph are not clear enough even for the Region Editor to solve, then as a last resort you can either edit the IIL parameters, or draw a boundary line yourself.

Conclusion

I’ve always found masking a pain, except when the areas to keep and delete are very clear cut. With Fluid Mask, I was capable of creating a decent mask in a matter of minutes instead of hours.

Fluid Mask may be a tad expensive, but for professional photographers, it’s a tool they will not find an alternative for easily.