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Selecting images with Fluid Mask 2 |
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(Page 4 of 4) RegionsRegions can be used in various circumstances in the program. It’s primary use – the selection of groups of colors and attributing them to one of the three masks. As a region is drawn (either rectangular or polygonal one) there appears the Region Editor panel containing a table of colors sorted by one of a number of characteristics (such as color, lightness or saturation). You can choose a set of colors and send them to one of the mask “buckets” (marked in green, red and blue). The colors you choose show on the image in yellow dots so that you can see whether they belong to the Keep or Drop area. The technique is very convenient when selecting such images as tree foliage or lattices.
But Regions can also be used widely with the Regions Editor ignored altogether. When the region is active any tool can only be used within it. So you can apply your tools freely not being afraid to spoil other parts of the image. The tutorials recommend the use of Regions before applying Force edge or editing hair, for example.
Making edges look better: Force edge and Smooth tools Force edge tool is used when the edge is too soft for the mask to deal with. In that case you can draw the line along the edge and give it exactness. The tool works polygonally, drawing lines between the points you click. After the line is drawn, you fill the areas on both sides. The resulted mask will have the exact edge you’ve drawn. The tool is also rather tempting when you cannot make the Drop/Keep mask fill the needed area for several times.
Smooth tool also makes the edges look better. They simply become smooth. The tool is applied to the whole image at once.Previewing and adjusting: Test RenderFluid Mask has no retouching tools but to help adjust the mask it has a very nice and convenient Test Render tool. Test render allows to preview a part of the image before applying the whole mask and improve the mask in those particular places. It is particularly convenient when working with complex images such as hair, fur, or rough edges. When using Test Render, there appears also the options menu for the tool where you can change the auto complex mask thickness and fix the edge noise.Overall Fluid Mask 2 is a really good selection program seriously increasing the speed of the selection process. It has a number of problems with hair and fur selection and is not perfect with some transparent objects but with other kinds of objects can produce very good results. There’s a number of rather convenient and easy to use tools. Although not all  the tools can be used intuitively OnOne has good and easy to understand tutorials online. All you have to do is watch them and then try the techniques on your own images. Fluid Mask 2 is sold at $199 at www.vertus.com; that is a little expensive for a non-professional user to my mind but professionals should make it up quickly enough. The visitors of our site can buy Fluid Mask with a special 10$ discount.
Look also at the comparison of selecting tools and selection results and at the rating of the plug-ins.
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