the original images	the masked images

A view of the use of masking in Photoshop and Premiere.

The entire project which uses Photoshop images with masked areas extensively.

An example of masking used in a title segment. The egret clip is seen later in this example in its unaltered form. Here the clip was slowed in speed and interlace flicker was minimized by first exporting the clip as filmstrip and then importing the filmstrip version. The masking of the background was accomplished by copying the clip and pasting the copy in the track above. The clip in the upper track was keyed with RGB differnce to make the white bird transparent; then the resulting transparency was set to show only as a mask. This black and white mask was used to hide the background of the lower video track version by keying the transparency of the lower track to 'track matte' and reverse the key to keep the bird from vanishing. An example of a very effective use of masking in this manner for a title segment is seen in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive where the shadows of the jitterbug dancers are used as a transparency mask to again reveal dancers inside the shadows, creating a device to reinforce the film's content.

Using Image Calculations to build a grayscale mask with Photoshop.

An example using Phtoshop to create masking control: The red channel was blended back into itself with color burn using the Image Calculations command: an important step in recovering detail in the roof. The metal roof detail had been mostly washed out by bright reflections in the original color slide. The resulting grayscale was then reversed to form a negative and saved as an alpha channel to be used as a control mask for Levels. The final adjustment to the new alpha channel was to adjust the brightness for the correct grayscale value of the metallic surface and then add significant contrast to sharpen the detail. This alpha channel was loaded as a mask for a Levels adjustment layer and the mask was blacked out in all regions except for the metal roof. Now the Levels adjustment layer could be used to add missing color onto the restored detail. Video work can be managed much in the same way that Photoshop uses alpha channels for masks. In Premiere, the mask is created as a grayscale video track added above the original and the appropriate transparency keying is used in the track below the grayscale track. By exporting a video track as Filmstrip format, the clip can be loaded into Photoshop and turned into a grayscale using the Image Calculations command to achieve the powerful diversity of grayscale possibilities that Photoshop can accomplish. Resaving as Filmstrip format and imported back into Premiere, the grayscale clip can be used as a matte track to control transparency in the track directly below. This masking technique as a matte track is commonly used in color correcting restricted portions of a video clip. The skills to be developed for both Photoshop and Premiere are identifying the regions to be corrected and visualizing what manner of grayscale mask will successfully control the adjustment!

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Photoshop Channel Mask and an Animmated 3D Mask.
Two short videos.

Premiere basic, class 1.

Back to the Premiere graphics page.

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