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K
Klickflip
Known Participant
February 5, 2018
Question

Photoshop 2018 - Mask refine tool - whats happened to it?!

  • February 5, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 1869 views

Hi, So i decided to update my laptop tonight and work on a very small quick image.. so I thought!

I do hundreds of these (headshot cutouts, select background) and have done happily on all recent versions  , now the mask refine tool seems .. well crap and completely different! 

I normally draw a path outline quickly, mostly correct around clean edges then I normally double click on the mask and this opens mask refine window.

Where i paint over the hair and sections I want it to refine. And normally images of portraits like these against a clean background are really quick and easy to get a good hair refinement.

Firstly I couldn't figure out what tool it was on, it's like there is no refine window any more ?

Then when I did get it to do something like paint edge refine, the results were worst I've experienced in a long time!

I've made a video to show my confusion and efforts.

Can anybody help?

I do hundereds, thousands of these a year , and for the first time tonight it seems like I was using a another program, not made by adobe!

Here's the screen grab video

Dropbox - Mask edge refine Problem CC2018.mov

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    1 reply

    davescm
    Community Expert
    davescmCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 5, 2018

    Hi

    You will find refine edge in two places now.

    1. The new Select & Mask workspace contains a revised refine edge tool. The algorithm on this tool has changed and it does work slightly differently to the old. Take some time with it and you will hopefully find it useful

    2. The old refine edge is still available , although it is hidden. With a selection made go to the Select menu then hold down Shift whilst clicking on Select and Mask in the drop down menu. Then the old refine edge will open.

    Dave

    K
    KlickflipAuthor
    Known Participant
    February 5, 2018

    Thanks Dave,

    why oh why.. 2018 is the worst photoshop release ever.  What a waste of development, and ruin of probably the best version to date (2017)

    The 2017 edge refine , and simple mask click was the best one ever.

    plus not to mention the cloning stuttering and huge slowdown and glitching I experienced on the first version.

    Has this mask tool been been the same since the first release,  As I didn‘t notice it on my desktop studio computer?

    I only noticed it now , but may have been doing more hand painting masks recently.

    davescm
    Community Expert
    davescmCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 5, 2018

    Interesting view .

    CC2017 had an earlier version of Select and Mask. The refine tools in Select and Mask have been improved in the latest versions and decontaminate colours now has a slider as opposed to a switch in CC2017(although I much prefer a separate layer clipped to the masked layer and set to color blending mode for controlled decontamination).

    The current version (19.1.0 r238) also has the Select Subject button added.

    You can still set the behaviour in Preferences>Tools so that double clicking a mask in the layers panel opens the Select and Mask workspace

    Access to the old refine edge works the same in CC2017 and CC2018

    Dave

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