P:(Masking) Handle gang-scanned images better in AI

@Adriaan_S 

Glad I could help.

Unfortunately LR doesn't provide a way to rotate masks nor shows the rotation angle of Linear Gradients as Photoshop does.

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It turns out that "Show edit pins" was turned off - now it works OK. The rotation would affect all photos on the page - but in most cases your preset will work fne. If needed I can create a mask like this manually. Thanks!

Adriaan

@Adriaan_S 

Simply select a component (they are all Linear Gradients).

Then you can move it, or rotate it, or change the feather like you normally would change a Linear Gradient.

To move the entire mask select the Mask itself > then drag and drop one of the components edit pins...all components will move together.

As for rotation you can rotate the sca  till the photo you want to select is straight, then apply the preset.

Thank you, C.Cella. However, I don't know how to move the mask sections. I see the submasks for the "edges" -- how to I change them? By the way, I am not scanning negatives - these are photo album pages. Thus, the separate photos can be differnt sizes and in different locations on the page. They can also be slightly rotated.

Thanks, Adriaan

@Adriaan_S 

Oh, be sure to first set a 2x3 aspect ratio to the photo, then use the preset.

LR unfortunately deforms presets unless they are applied in the same aspect ratio in which they have been created.

@Adriaan_S

I made a perfect rectangular mask for you.

Here it is: https://we.tl/t-BXbrLriwgI

You can simply adjust the edges of the rectangle till they fit/cover your photo.

Then move the mask around in case.

This solution is a bit more complex than the one suggested by @johnrellis 

The advantage here is that you can summon the preset or create presets that have the exact size of your scanned negatives.

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Yao, thank you for the suggestion. In this case I want to keep the album pages intact.

Adriaan

Another way to deal with this is to make multiple virtual copies and simply use the crop tool to crop each virtual copy to a separate frame in your image. Then simply user the normal adjustments to correct each image. No need for special masks this way. Of course if you want the image of the entire page and only correct the frames you need the tricks here but if you want the photos, just crop virtual copies.

Thanks, John, that is very helpful. If I knew how I would give you bonus points for recording the video!

Adriaan

Forum won't let me provide an attachment to a reply, so here's the screen recording:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9xbztgnz5s3pncd/rectangular-mask.mp4?dl=0