Masks

[midnightrider Profile]

How does one add their own masks to a picture....I'm just not getting it?

[admin]

Hi,

Short answer: Either press 'Mask Area', under Effect Controls in the gallery or 'Mask Area' once you've selected an effect.

Long answer: There are lots of ways of masking areas explained here.

[midnightrider Profile]

What I'm asking is how would I apply a premade image mask....such as I have masks that I can use in Photoshop and Paint Shop that are already made...in those apps I aplly a mask to them....is there a way to use image masks to apply over your images in this software?

[admin]

Hi Midnightrider,

Thanks for the clarification.

Short answer: Currently there's no easy way to import masks you've made in another program. We are planning to support transparent pngs in the compositing module in the future, I take it you would be interested in that?

Long answer: If you don't mind getting your 'hands dirty' in the effect editor, there is a way of importing masks, but it's several steps and requires you to export your mask from say Photoshop as a black and white picture by itself. Let me know if you want to know more.

Tony

[midnightrider Profile]

Yes....I would be interested.

[admin]

Hi,

The best way I can help you is if you tell me exactly what you want to do with the mask once it's imported, then I can give you all the steps to use it in the way you want.

Tony

[midnightrider Profile]

Using a black and white (and some parts shades of gray)....I would want my original image to show through the white part...with the shades of gray to be like a fade of the original image....solid black would show no part of the image.

Thanks

[admin]

What would you see in areas that were black in the mask picture instead of your original image? An effect, a solid color like black or something else?

Tony

[midnightrider Profile]

Yes....the color white would be the most useful to me, because I print most of my images I create. So having the area that masks out the image would be the most useful to me if that area was simply displayed as white.

[admin]

Ok, here's how to import a mask from another program (obviously if you create the mask in SPE, then the workflow is much simpler, so this is just if you already had the mask from somewhere else):


1. Load your picture
2. Select the effect editor tool from the buttons on the right (not available in all trial versions).
3. Click on the "Add Image" button
4. Choose your black and white mask image (it will create two nodes in the top left: Load Image and Scale, drag them out of the corner so you can see them)
5. In the search box at the top of the left column type "rgb" and drag an RGB split node on to the canvas
6. connect the output of scale (yellow semi circle on the right of the scale node) to input of the RGB split node. This turns your single RGB image into three separate R G and B images.
7. In the search box at the top of the left column type "image" and drag an "Image To Selection" node onto the canvas.
8. Attach the Effect Input (which is your original image) to the top input of image to selection, and the top output of the RGB split to the bottom input of image to selection (you've made one channel of RGB split into a selection).
9. Name the selection by double clicking on image to selection.
10. Now you can use the selection: type "filter" into the search box and drag a filter node onto the canvas.
11. connect the output of image to selection into the input of normal filter.
12. Double click on normal filter, and change the "Area" to your mask. You can now play about with the color, opacity and filter type.
13. Connect the output of the normal filter to the effect output and you're done!

It looks daunting at first, but once you get the hang of searching for nodes and connecting them it should only take a minute or so. I've attached a picture of what your network should look like once you're done.