Manual for Windows - VertusTech · Vertus Fluid Mask 2.0 Manual for Windows Local . Vertus Fluid...

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Vertus Fluid Mask 2.0 Manual for Windows © 2006 Heligon 1 Manual for Windows

Transcript of Manual for Windows - VertusTech · Vertus Fluid Mask 2.0 Manual for Windows Local . Vertus Fluid...

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Vertus Fluid Mask 2.0 Manual for Windows

© 2006 Heligon 1

Manual for Windows

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Introduction to Fluid Mask Manual

Vertus’ Fluid Mask software is a set of advanced paint tools that cut out highly

complex images with absolute precision. Designed to make life easier for

everyone who needs to mask images, it offers an intuitive, accurate and fast

approach to cut-outs.

The software automatically detects even hard-to-see edges within the image and

pours the mask right out to each edge, giving the user much greater control over

the cut-out.

Using Vertus’ Fluid Mask 2.0 displays the image as a series of clean and smooth

objects using the Edge Overlay view which can be selected and grouped together

when masking. These objects are also “smart” as they contain information about

edge morphology – helping to create high quality blended edges for your cut-

outs. This makes masking similar to coloring by numbers.

Fluid Mask 2.0 uses breakthrough technology which mimics the way the eye,

optic-nerve and brain perform visual processing. When opening Fluid Mask, the

software automatically makes an analysis of the image metadata about texture

change, edge and color information within the image. This is used to locate edges

when painting masks and blending edges.

You can see the benefits of this approach when you try these:

• Hair and fur - Try cutting out lattices

• Speed – Use “One-MaskTM and the “Edge Overlay” view

• Control – Invoke the “Region Editor” for better color selections

• Quality – Use “Auto-Complex” for automatic edge characterization

and

complex masking

• Ease of use – Checkout the intuitive “Edge Detection Options” and the

“Edge Overlay”

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Contents This Manual covers:

• How to get started – Download and installation

• An introduction to the product – Tools and features

• Using the product – Applying masks, adjusting the “Edge Detection

Options”, using regions, forcing an edge

Throughout the Manual you will see - Top Tips signs. These offer useful tips

and alternative ways of doing things that will help you to create great cut-outs.

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Getting started

Download Please download Fluid Mask at

http://www.vertustech.com/fm_freetrial.htm

Installation Download the installer file for Windows from the link above and save it to your

computer. Double click the file. The installation wizard starts automatically.

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. Fluid Mask will be

automatically installed into the Plug-ins folder of Photoshop.

Fluid Mask is started through Adobe Photoshop. You can find the link to start the

software in Photoshop under > Filter > Vertus > Fluid Mask. When you open Fluid

Mask for the first time you are prompted to make the choice between running

Fluid Mask as a demo (limited functionality) or activating it fully using your Serial

Key. If you choose to open it as a demo you may later enter your Serial Key to

activate it fully.

Please note:

For non-English versions of Photoshop the name of the Plug-ins folder is localized

into the native language. The automatic installation process does not take

account of this. Instead it will create an English Plug-ins folder and install in to

that.

In this circumstance, use the following installation process to make Fluid Mask

available in the menu > Filter in Photoshop: When the installation process starts,

please use the manual install option in the installer and select the localized Plug-

ins folder inside your Photoshop application folder. Then continue and complete

the installation process.

Activating Fluid Mask with your new Serial Key

Registering Fluid Mask at First Use

If this is the first time you have run Fluid Mask from download, the registration

wizard will appear automatically when you load your first image from Photoshop

and invoke the Fluid Mask plug-in from the Filter menu on the toolbar.

1. Make sure you are connected to the internet.

2. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to activate the full version of Fluid

Mask remembering not to indicate that you want to run the software in

Demo mode.

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Registering from Demo Mode

If you are running Fluid Mask in Demo mode, to register the product and unlock

the full version you should:

1. Make sure that you are connected to the internet.

2. Click “Help” from the toolbar and from the drop down menu select “About

Fluid Mask”

3. Click the button marked “Register” and the registration wizard will appear

4. Follow the on-screen instructions to activate the full version of Fluid Mask

Please note that your computer must be connected to the internet when

you register Fluid Mask as it needs to register with an online database.

An alternative online registration, e. g. from a different computer, or

offline registration is not possible.

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A tour of the product features The first part of this Manual takes you through the tools, tabs and options to

make you familiar with the product features. These are also available to you as a

Quick Guide from “Manuals and Tutorials” on our website at:

http://www.vertustech.com/fm_tutorials.htm

It may be useful to print off the Quick Guide as a reference when first starting

Fluid Mask and when looking through the rest of this Manual. The Quick Guide

also shows short-cut key strokes which are not included here.

View tabs There are three convenient view tabs in Fluid Mask which make it easy to follow

the cut-out process, from start to finish: Source, Workspace and Output. The

Source tab contains the original image. The Workspace tab is where you apply

masks. The tab Output tab contains the cut-out you create.

There are three types of mask

may be manually or automatically applied to an image:

Keep mask – by default indicated bin

green, masks the area that you want

to keep

Delete mask – by default indicated in red, masks the area to be deleted

Complex mask – by default indicated

in blue, the complex mask comprises

mixed Keep and Delete pixels at the

edge of the object (this mask is added

automatically when the other two are applied in close proximity)

Output – final cut-out

Workspace – mask application

Source – original image

Mask Opacity – to adjust the

level of all mask opacities

Edge Overlay – to display the object

edges Fluid Mask finds within the

image

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Create Region – (see later) selects

an area of the image requiring

detailed work

Tool Set

Colors – the colors are used to

indicate Keep, Delete and

Complex masks

Complex – exact pencil, local and

global brushes to apply complex

mask

Zoom – Zooms in and out of the

image when working on fine detail

Exact Pencil – masks only

the pixels you paint

Global Brush – covers all the

pixels across the whole image

that are similar to the colors and

texture of the pixels you paint

Eraser – removes mask

Smooth – smoothes jagged edges of mask

Force Edge – forces a mask

barrier when Local Brush doesn’t indicate an edge

Select Region – selects and

moves Regions

Pan – lets you move the around

your image with ease

Create Cut-Out – creates a final

cut-out

Background Toggle – alters

the appearance of backgrounds:

Transparent – the background as

the traditional Photoshop checkered

background Color – shows the

background as a specific color

Double click on the color

square to alter the color

background. Use heavily contrasting

background to pick out any pixels

that may have been missed in the

masking process.

Test Render – previews sections of

the cut out before performing

a full cut out

Continually drag marquee over

area of interest as you work for

quick snapshots of your work in

progress – gives you confidence in

your masking and ensures no

upsets at Create Cut-Out stage

Clean – cleans up speckles (holes)

within mask selections already

made

Local Brush – masks all the pixels

of a similar color in the immediate

area that match the pixels you paint

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Tool controls Using most tools in the main tool will invoke the “Tool Options” window to be

active. This offers options to adjust variables such as the brush size or strength.

The sample below refers to Local Mask Brush controls.

Navigator As with Photoshop, you can use the Navigator panel to zoom and move about

your image.

Include masks – applies

new mask to colors already assigned to a mask

Brush size – adjusts the pixel

size of the selected brush

Auto-Complex – (see later)

adjusts the relative amount of

automatically applied Complex

mask or turns the feature off

Auto-smooth –

smoothes jagged edges

of mask automatically

Image – thumbnail of your

image

Window ratio – red boarder

indicates the section of image

visible in the image window

Zoom – zooms in and out of

the image using the zoom slider

Brush strength – adjusts the

amount of mask the selected

brush will apply

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Edge Detection Options The “Edge Detection Options” Panel offers various settings that control the

masking process in Fluid Mask. The adjustments you make in the “Edge Detection

Options” panel allow you to refine the information about an image that Fluid Mask

uses to detect edges and find objects within the image. The results of the

adjustments you make are new object boundaries. The image objects and their

boundaries are then visible in the “Edge Overlay” view. The “Edge Overlay” view

can be activated/deactivated in the main window of Fluid Mask through activating

the check box at the bottom (see screenshot page 6).

Edge Sensitivity – Increase the

sensitivity to find more edges

within the image.

Increase to maximum and

every pixel becomes an edge.

Switch off the “Edge overlay” and

adjust brush strength to control the

size of your selections.

Workspace resolution – To make masking faster the source image

can be downscaled. You can set the number of source pixels to

workspace pixels ratio here.

The output tab always remains at full resolution so that the cut-out

generated does not loose any detail.

Texture Filter – controls the

texture analysis.

Fine – helps to accurately select

many small objects (e.g. leaves

against sky).

Coarse – is useful to prevent

detection of lots of tiny objects (e.g.

blades of grass) by treating those

areas as uniform patches of

texture.

Edge Contrast – specifies how

much difference in color there is

across edges in the image.

Low - helps to find edges between

objects of very similar color.

High- is useful to speed up cutting

out simple images by reducing the

number of edges.

In-Focus Edge Width – here you

can specify the width (in pixels) of

an edge between two objects that

are in sharp focus.

Zoom right in on the image to

see how wide the edges really are.

In large images it can be 10's of

pixels.

Reduce the width to find more

edges in the image.

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Region Editor Select the Region Tool (Rectangular or Polygonal selection tool) from the Basic

tool palette to open the Region Editor.

The Region Editor is used for fine tuning and complex detail (See below). It

allows you to move colors within a selected region from one mask to another, or

to assign unallocated colors to one of the masks. This is helpful in case you

applied a Keep or Delete mask to an image but some pixels of certain color

(around a blurred edge, for example) were marked by the wrong mask. The tabs

“Keep”, “Delete”, “Complex” and “Unassigned” will show you to which mask the

color in the region you marked has been assigned.

Region color palette –

colors within the selected

region

Selected colors – colors

selected within the Region

Editor and waiting to be

assigned to a mask type

Number of colors – reduce or expand the color

detail when working with large regions

Assign to Complex mask – apply

Complex mask to selected colors

Assigned color palette – colors within a

region that have been assigned to a mask

type

Unassigned color palette – all colors within a

region that have not yet been assigned to a mask

type

Sort colors – organizes

the colors into 1D or 2D

views

Assign to Keep

mask – apply Keep

mask to selected colors

Assign to Delete mask – apply

Delete mask to selected colors

Turn on/off Auto-Complex within a region – turn off

Auto-Complex to prevent automatic movement of mask

assignments

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Using Fluid Mask 2.0

This section looks at how to use the product concentrating on several key areas:

• Making mask selections and creating a cut-out

• Adjusting the Edge Detection Options to improve masking of difficult images

• Using Regions for detailed color based selections

• Forcing an edge as a last resort

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Making mask selections and creating a cut-out The key to making a good cut-out is to make good mask selections. If the

selection is wrong the edge blending will be wrong.

For the first few times you use Fluid Mask, experiment with different selections and

settings for your brushes and use “Test Render” tool from the main tool box to review the

results. You can use Test Render even if you only apply One-Mask (see Quick Cutting in

the Tutorial)

Making mask selections

To make any cut-out you need to apply three different mask types:

• Delete mask in red to mask all those areas of the image to be deleted

(or background areas)

• Keep mask in green to mask all those areas of the image to be kept (or

foreground areas)

• Complex mask in blue to mask the edge areas contaminated by

foreground and background colors

Note: these representative colors may be changed using Fluid Mask preferences

in the menu > Edit > Preferences. However in this Manual the masks Delete,

Keep and Complex are always indicated using red, green and blue.

There are two paths you may take to cut out images.

• The first is quick cutting using One-Mask™. Paint all of either the Keep

or Delete mask and then press the button “Create Cut-Out” in the main

tool box. Fluid Mask then Auto-Fills the remaining two masks and cuts the

object out. This is the quickest and simplest way of making a cut-out.

Using One-Mask™ makes sure that only one of Keep or Delete masks have

been painted otherwise the operation will not auto-fill and revert to three mask

cutting

Alter the amount of automatically applied Complex mask applied in the auto-fill

process by adjusting the auto-complex settings in the brush tool options

You may separate the auto-fill process from Create Cut-Out using Auto-Fill

Image from the Image Menu

• The second path is by painting the Keep and Delete Masks. It’s a slower

process but you have more control over the masking. When Keep and

Delete masks are painted close together at an edge Complex Mask is

automatically created (see Auto-Complex mask below).

Auto-Complex masking

Auto-Complex masking paints Complex Mask over the edge between Keep and

Delete masks and adjusts the position of the Keep and Delete masks

automatically. The thickness of the Complex mask and position of the other

masks is determined by the character of the edge and which data Fluid Mask

retains at the boundary of each object. A thin Complex mask will apply to hard in-

focus edges, a thick Complex mask will be applied for wider defocused edges.

Further, the relative amount of Complex Mask may be adjusted using the Auto-

Complex settings (see screenshot page 14). Usually the thick Auto-Complex setting is

the appropriate setting for most images as it will create thin Complex masks on in-focus

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edges. But should the background be complex and interfere with the blend of the edge, or

the image resolution be poor and the edges display compression artefact, or you are

working with fine lattices (e. g. trees) then it is best to reduce the level of Auto-Complex

masking and use the Thin and Medium settings. The Auto-complex Masking may also

be turned off.

Don’t fall into the trap of changing the overall thickness of the Auto-Complex masking

to alter the mask in one area; otherwise you’ll throw out all your masks. These kinds of

“local” changes need to be made by reverting to the Workspace and manually adjusting

the masks using combinations of brush strokes, Auto-Complex settings and the Include

Mask check boxes in the Tool Options.

Painting mask using brushes

There are three brush types to apply mask in three different ways.

Exact

Applies mask to only the pixels you paint.

Local

Masks all the pixels of a similar color and texture in the immediate area that match the

pixels you paint.

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Global

Covers all the pixels across the whole image that are similar to the colors and texture of

the pixels you paint.

Brush options

Each brush type has a number of options that can be adjusted to help your

masking:

Adjust brush size (common to all brush types)

Adjust the size of your brush by pixel adjustments.

Adjust brush strength

Brush strength determines how far your local mask selections will “grow”. Use it

to determine the correct strength for the image and task.

When the brush strength is at its minimum the local brush acts just like a flood fill

going to the nearest object edge within the image. Turn on the check box “Show Edges”

(Edge Overlay) at the bottom of the main window in Fluid Mask to see exactly the object

edges in the image have been detected by Fluid Mask.

Holding down Ctrl when you release the mouse at the end of painting a mask gives

you a weaker brush. This can save you from having to change brush strength too often,

and makes working with hair and complex areas containing many colors easier.

Auto-Complex controls

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To find accurately edges of very complex shapes such as hair or fur, set the edge

sensitivity to maximum (20) in the Edge Detection Options panel and click Apply. This

turns every pixel in to an object (you will need to turn off “Show Edges” by pressing F2).

Now rely on the brush strength to control how large your selections are. This is particularly

useful with the Global brush for selecting complex lattices such as trees.

Re-masking – making mask selections which overwrite areas already

masked (common to all brush types)

By default you may only mask areas which have not already been masked

(unassigned areas). This may be over-ruled to allow you to overwrite existing

mask selections by selecting the check boxes in the Tool Options of each brush by

selecting Include Keep, Include Delete or Include Complex.

Invoke Auto-Complex (common to all brush types and Test render)

The width of the automatically applied Complex Mask (see above) is dependent

on the character of the edge but can be adjusted into: None (turns Auto-Complex

off) –Thin – Medium (default) – Thick.

Invoke Auto-Smooth (Local and Global brush only)

Automatically performs the smooth function as a mask is applied. (see Smoothing

a mask). The amount of smoothing is controlled from the smooth tool options.

Smoothing a mask

Use the Smooth Picker in the main tool box to smooth jagged edges of the

selected mask. The smooth picker’s strength can be adjusted using the slider in

the Tools Option panel. Previous selections may also be smoothed from the

Image Menu.

Cleaning a mask

Use the Clean Picker to remove small holes from within the selected mask. The

Cleaning Picker’s strength may be adjusted using the slider in the Tools Option

panel. Additional clean operations may be performed from the Image Menu.

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Adjusting the Edge Detection Options to improve masking of difficult images There are a number of options that control the image analysis found in the Edge

Detection Options panel. When loading an image into Fluid Mask, the program

attempts to estimate sensible default values for an image. However, due to the

huge range of images it is sometimes necessary to adjust these values manually

to achieve a better result in edge detection.

The Edge Overlay shows you clearly what edges have been found and whether

you will need to adjust the values to help you mask the image.

It is worth spending time getting to understand how changing the different

options will affect the edges found. The Edge Overlay is there to help you.

The mask you have already laid down is preserved when the Edge Detection Options

are changed. This allows you to work on each part of the image using the most appropriate

values for that area by changing the settings as you go along.

After changing the value of the options please click on “Apply” in the Edge

Detection Options panel to start the re-analysis of the image.

The button “Revert” restores the values of the options most recently used to

analyze the image.

The button “Defaults” restores the default values for this image.

Use F3 to change the

style of the edge overlay

(here to white) so that the

edges are clearly visible

against the colors of the

image. Use F2 to turn the

overlay (check box “Show

edges”) on and off.

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Adjusting Workspace Resolution

Fluid Mask measures your computer’s performance and ensures that the Work-

space resolution used allows for acceptably quick mask selections (large images

tend to slow Fluid Mask down at full resolution). It does not affect your image as

the mask resolution is subsequently matched to your image at the Create Cut-Out

stage.

Adjustments to this automatic process may be made in the main menu under >

Image > Preferences. You may either set the automated resolution setting for

Speed of Selection (lower resolution and the default) or Greater Detail (higher

resolution).

This automatic process may be over-ridden in the Image menu or the Edge

Detection Options panel. Primary reasons for undertaking this are:

• Improving masking around very wide defocused edges (reduce image

resolution)

• Improving edge selection where colors are very similar either side of the

edge (increase image resolution)

• Reducing image noise (reduce image resolution)

• Improving detail in the Workspace (increase image resolution)

When the image is first loaded into Fluid Mask, use the Edge Overlay view to check

that (object) edges coincide with those of the target area to be cut-out. Also, try masking

an area with difficult edges and use the Test Render tool to see if the masking is accurate

and preserves enough detail at the edge. It could be that improvements to these may be

made by adjusting Workspace resolution rather than using other Edge Detection Option

settings at the same resolution.

Please note: that changing resolution has to remove any mask you have already

laid down and it is not possible to restore the lost mask unless you save the

workspace from the File menu. Fluid mask will warn you of this before changing

resolution.

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Adjusting Edge Sensitivity

The most common and obvious adjustment you will want to make is to the edge

sensitivity. To find more edges in the image simply increase it. To find less edges

decrease it.

For simple images turn down the edge sensitivity until just before the edges you

want to keep disappear. This will show a minimum of objects to mask within the

image and will allow you to apply the appropriate masks faster.

For complicated images with lots of detail, such as trees, grass, hair, feathers or

fur it is often necessary to turn up the edge sensitivity a long way. This can make

the edge overlay hard to use (because it obscures most of your image) and can

make laying down mask slow because only small areas of the image are selected

at a time.

To overcome this turn off the edge overlay and increase the brush strength.

When the brush strength is increased the local and global brushes will select

more at a time, flooding into areas of similar color and texture to the area you

paint.

For cutting out complex lattices such as trees against sky turn the edge

sensitivity up to maximum and find the appropriate brush strength to use with

the global brush.

If Edge Sensitivity only is changed in the Edge Detection Options panel the analysis of

the image is faster than if any of the other options are changed.

Adjusting In-Focus Edge Width

The In-Focus Edge Width is one of the most important options in order to improve

the results of edge detection. The width of an edge between two objects depends

on how in or out of focus the objects are and how large the image is.

Fluid Mask attempts to estimate the In-Focus Edge Width based on the size of the

image. However this is often incorrect since the image may be just a zoomed in

part of a larger image. It would be hard to determine this automatically.

To work out what the in-focus edge width size, zoom right in until you can count

the number of pixels wide across a typical in-focus edge.

By adjusting In-Focus Edge Width you can find more or less detail in the image. To get

rid of fine detail increase the edge width, or to find more detail decrease it. Beware of

decreasing it unnecessarily for large images since it will slow the analysis down and

require a great deal of memory.

Adjusting Edge Contrast

A low contrast image is one in which background and foreground colors are very

similar. For example an image shot in poor lighting conditions. Even if the lighting

conditions are good, it can be hard to detect the boundary between dark objects

and their shadows (such as tires of a car) because the contrast across the edge is

very low.

In such situations setting the Edge Contrast to Low will help at the expense of a

slightly slower analysis. In general this will increase the number of edges found in

the image.

Alternatively for high contrast images it can be faster to work with the image by

increasing the Edge Contrast to high. This will tend to find less edges in the

image.

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Adjusting Texture Filter

A powerful part of Fluid Mask's image analysis is its texture filter. You can set the

relative size of repeating patterns in the image that will be considered as uniform

areas of texture.

Images of natural scenes, for example, often contain areas of grass of leaves. To

preserve the fine detail of individual leafs or blades of grass set the Texture Filter

to Fine. On the other hand to amalgamate all these small objects into uniform

areas of texture that can be grouped together change the Texture Filter to

Coarse.

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Use Regions for detailed color selections Regions are an alternative means of applying a mask. Rather than mask by

selecting pixels, as with the brush tools, the Region Tool allows you to mask

areas by selecting colors.

In addition, regions may be used to constrain the effects of a brush tool. If a

brush selection is started within a Region, its effects will be confined to the area

covered by the Region.

Creating Regions

There are two forms of Region created by different tools:

Click on the desired Region type and draw the region in the Workspace. When

draw, the “Region Editor” will automatically appear, containing all the colors in

that region. The colors will be shown in the three different tabs “Keep”, “Delete”

or “Complex” depending on what mask has been applied to them before, or under

the tab “Unassigned” when no mask has been applied to those colors yet.

It is possible to create as many regions as needed.

Use the Select Region Tool to

• activate an existing Region. Double click within the Region for it to

maximize to the full size of the Workspace window

• adjust a Region’s size by pulling at the corners

• move a Region

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Using the Region Editor When a Region is created or selected, a palette of the colors of all pixels within

the Region is created in a Region Editor. These are sorted by mask status.

By highlighting colors in the Region Editor, corresponding pixels in the Region are

highlighted in yellow.

These selections may be altered to another mask status by clicking on the colored

buckets at the bottom of the Region Editor. Clicking on the green bucket assigns

the selected colors to the Keep mask, the red to the Delete mask and the Blue to

the Complex mask.

Select a region – drag a

marquee over the area to be

worked on

Region Editor appears –

the Region Editor is

automatically launched

displaying all the colors in the

selected region

Selected colors indicated –

selected colors are high-

lighted on the image

Select one or many

colors – colors can be

selected in groups or

individually within the

Region Editor

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The appearance of colors may be organized into 1D or 2D views using the drop

down menus at the bottom of the Region Editor. The color palette may be further

managed using the Number of Colors slider that resolves all pixel colors into

increasingly fewer ones.

Experiment with the Number of Colors slider to find the optimum palette

management, enabling you to make great selections

Using Regions to constrain actions

Another feature of the Region is that it acts as a boundary to certain actions:

• A Region will constrain any selection (Exact, Local or Global) made within it.

• Auto-Complex Masking may also be turned off within a Region but still be

applicable elsewhere.

Forcing an edge as a last resort Sometimes it’s necessary to mark an edge. This might be because the edge is not

visible, or the Local Brush cannot “find” it despite the adjustments made above.

To do this we use the Force Edge tool

Mask then appears in

Workspace – Here, as the

selected colors are assigned to

the Delete mask, the selected

pixels change from Yellow to Red

in the Workspace

Tab views in the Region Editor

- view colors within the Region

assigned to each mask type

and those colors still

unassigned using the Tabs at the

top of the Region Editor

Assign colors to mask type –

apply mask by assigning selected

colors to the correct mask

“bucket” – in this case the

selected color is assigned to

Delete mask

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The Force Edge tool creates an explicit edge between two areas preventing

subsequent Local Brush strokes from “leaking” across the edge. The edge line

includes anchor points which can be picked-up and moved using the Select

Region pointer tool.

Next steps Try the step-by-step tutorial on some of our example images or test Fluid Mask

on an image of your own.

For other hints, tips and problem solving visit our website at www.vertustech.com

and go to the Cut-out Gallery. There you’ll find examples of great cut-outs and

advice on how they were achieved, all submitted by Fluid Mask users. More

support from the team at Vertus and other Fluid Mask users can be found in our

Vertus’ community forum. You can reach the forum through our web site.