Vertus Fluid Mask 3

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From Chris Price

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Fluid Mask 3

The Bottom Line

Fluid Mask 3 is a professional image cutout utility available for both Windows and Mac. It combines intuitive mask painting tools with intelligent edge finding capabilities to allow the user to remove backgrounds from images with ease. For those who have used the Extract filter in Photoshop in the past, which was removed from the default filters in CS4, Fluid Mask 3 will be an easy transition because it works much the same, only with more sophisticated selection tools. As an overall masking tool where a speed-up in the workflow is needed, Fluid Mask 3 fits the bill and comes highly recommended.

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Pros

Can be used as a standalone application or as a Photoshop plugin.
The selection tools are intuitive and easy to learn.
Free video and live training are available directly from Vertus to get you running immediately.
Edge detection and edge blending are completely customizable and automatic.
The "global" brushes make quick work of selecting areas to keep or delete.

Cons

Applying a mask is a destructive process. Background pixels are deleted entirely.

Description

Extracts images from backgrounds quickly and easily using intuitive, color-coded paint tools that support tablet pressure.
Where edges are not automatically detected, you can create forced edges to achieve the desired cutout shape.
Automatically blends blurred or soft edges with transparency.
Automatically masks complex shapes such as hair.
Projects and masks can be saved as separate files for later work.
Provides instant help for tools using detailed roll-over context help topics.
Offers quick previews of the final cutout with the Preview tool.
Fluid Mask is compatible with Photoshop CS2, CS3 and CS4.
A free 14-day trial and free live training webcasts are available directly on the Vertus website.

Guide Review - Vertus Fluid Mask 3

Background masking is one of the most common tasks needed in photo editing, whether the end result is to place the cutout into a different background, prepare an image for compositing, or simply removing all background shadows. Traditional methods include using the pen tool, hand painting, or manually erasing. Creating these masks from scratch can be very time consuming, especially for portraits that include hair, objects with complex edges, or blurred edges. Vertus Fluid Mask 3 reduces the time and complication by using a combination of hand painting tools and advanced edge finding that outlines all of the major changes in color across an image.

By combining the edge-finding with global fill paint brushes which automatically blend for soft or blurred edges, basic masks can be laid out, tested and applied very quickly with little effort. Beyond edge-finding, Fluid Mask 3 has other selection tools available including a "Forced Edge" tool like the polygonal lasso tool in most editing software, color range selection, complex hair blending, and basic "keep" and "delete" brushes which are pressure sensitive for graphics tablet users. Any combination of selection tools can be used for a single cutout and special regions of an image can use different settings for a more accurate mask.

Altogether, the images tested for this review showed favorable results, with the exception of areas where the object to be cut out and the background had a similar color. With a little fine-tuning of the painted mask itself and increasing number of edges to find with the intelligent edge finder, a workable cutout that only needed minor tweaks back in Photoshop could be achieved. The intelligent blending of blurred edges is especially impressive with Fluid Mask 3.

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