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Help with refining masks

Brett Nation

I am working on a trial period. And, being able to refine a mask is important. 

I select SUPER. 

Click on the eagle with sloppy AI masking.

It turns BLUE. 

Then I select REFINE. 

I get the paint in, paint out and auto paint. Sounds really cool!

PROBLEM: There should be a way to see the mask while I correct it. But, NOPE!

I click on SUPER and the mask is just wrong again. 

The video tutorial look easy.... What am I missing?

Cheers! 

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Comments

8 comments

Date Votes
  • Brian Lawson Community moderator
    • Edited

    Press the O key and you’ll be able to see your mask. Under the mask menu there are options for various ways to see it as a grayscale, a red overlay, and a red overlay that only shows while you are painting.

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  • Brett Nation

    So, my entire image goes white when I press the O key. 

     

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  • Brian Lawson Community moderator
    • Edited

    Then there is no mask in which ever Effect or Local Adjustment or Layer you currently have selected. From your initial description it sounds as though you never actually created a mask.

    When using SuperSelect AI you first click to define what you want masked. That gives you the blue preliminary mask that you saw. After that you have to right-click on it and tell the program where you want it to be applied – in an Effect or a Local Adjustment. At that point the Effect or Local Adjustment is added to your editing stack and the actual mask gets created in it.

    You might want to watch some of the videos the company put out showing how this feature works. Dan Harlacher did some around the time of release last November. You can find them on YouTube.

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  • Brett Nation

    Apparently you have to hit ADD. 
    Sorry, this should be VERY easy to get a clean mask.

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  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    Watch the videos.

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  • Brett Nation

    The masking tool leaves undesirable holes inside the eagle (Paint in). And, undesirable gray areas near the wing tips (Paint Auto). Ideally, I can bounce back and forth between the image mask (bird) and the background (everything else). When I hit ADD they seem to be temporary. 

    THANKS IN ADVANCE for your help. I am trying to take my images to the next level. 

     

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  • Brett Nation
    • The videos make it look super easy. Haha
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  • Brian Lawson Community moderator

    It is easy. I did the following from the .png posted above. I could have done a better job with the RAW file.

    I started by pressing the K key to select SSAI. I clicked on the bird then created a Local Adjustment with the HDR Effect Style just for exaggerated visibility in the screen shots. Yes, it did leave part of the wing unselected. That isn't surprising as right there the wing more or less blends with the background. The AI can't define the wing's edge. It took me 5 minutes with the Brush tool to fix the wing and the Perfect Brush to mask the background between the wingtip feathers.

    Original SSAI mask

    Fixed mask

    Finished image with mask.

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