Participant

Question

masks option gone in the latest 2026 premiere update?

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
February 11, 2026
12 replies
4057 views

where did the masks functions move in the latest update? I need to create custom shape masks, not just cropping - - and that option seems to have disappeared.

Curtis Redden

Participant

Adobe once again removing a simple feature for no reason. I had an entire online course project full of 120 lessons that had manual masks added on an adjustment layer for a background effect. All these are lost now. Seriously WTF.

Edit in the night play in the day.

Ann Bens

Community Expert

When doing tutorials you might want to keep an eye on the beta to see what is coming in the future.

TomAustria

Participant

Actually the way adobe „intoduced“ new buggy features is wrong on so many levels, it reminds me of the disaster of Final Cuts „update“ from 9 to X, lost me as a user then. Now I’m really thinking about davinci, because in my opinion, a good video editing tool provides fast workflows for the 3 absolute basics which are cutting, masking and color correction. Masking is now an absolute nightmare in premiere…don’t get me wrong, I really love the new magical object selection tool, if it works, but it just doesn’t in 90% of the time

R Neil Haugen

Legend

First ... if you haven’t read the full documentation on the new masking system, it’s gonna be painful. No questions there!

Second, if you have, it shouldn’t be any more difficult or longer to use ... there can be one more tap on the keyboard, but the masking itself tracks vastly better and faster.

I’ve no need to go to Ae for roto work anymore, it’s a huge improvement. But it was plain weird to start with!

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

TomAustria

Participant

It’s just horrible, my new „workflow“ takes 2-3 times longer

S

ScottSimmons

Community Expert

If you take time to learn the new masking tools, how they work, and their nuances you’ll save 2-3 times in the future. The biggest thing I learned was how to assign masks, since they are no longer part of every effect. Once I got there, time saved overall.

R

Robbiec

Participant

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Peru Bob

Community Expert

@Robbiec

Your replies are empty.

zcal13mhm

Participant

Came here to say that this update is horrible and I wish a very swift “undo”

I use masks daily and would love for them to be readily available again. What was the purpose of this change other than worsening UX

R Neil Haugen

Legend

You have to read the documentation on it to get the best use. Period. It's so different. If you haven't you can't get “there”. So have you read the whole piece?

Some aren't needing the new capabilities and for those, it's not a great change.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

cameronr1454398

Participant

Gonna back this up 100000000000000000000000000000000000000% ADOBE! FIX THIS! PUT IT BACK THE WAY IT WAS! WE ALL LIKED IT LIKE THAT! THIS WAS A HORRIBLE CHANGE!

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Zae Zur

Participating Frequently

Per usual Adobe takes a perfectly working function and destroys it. Thanks to this thread. I at least found where the mask tools are hiding now which is insane but now I don't know how to apply it. How do you take an unassigned mask and assign it whoever works there I think is a sadist that doesn't use the software and they like seeing us longtime designers and creative squirm because they take features that have been in place for decades and they strip them away from us. It's ridiculous. All products do this. It's like whoever works at Adobe now doesn't actually use their software in any professional context whatsoever.

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Zae Zur

Participating Frequently

OK, I watched a few videos, but I think they should still leave the quick access to the masks up in the properties panel

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Like about anything else in these complex and complicated applications, you can’t make a change, even an overall good change, without ticking off people ... sometimes for absurd reasons, but for this change, at times very sound workflow reasons.

I’m kinda meh about the change in location ... not much affect, neither better nor worse for me. I can certainly understand why someone with tremendous muscle memory to do this without needing to think about the moves, working the old way, would be outraged by the change.

So full sympathy on that.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

michaelm11605974

Known Participant

I’m sure in the old mask tool you could step frame by frame through the timeline and just move the mask and it would create a new keypoint - now you keep having to select the mask in the effects panel - then move the mask - then select the mask again!

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Alessandro5CB3

Participating Frequently

To force every user to this convoluted, needless change is unhinged. Just give us the opacity mask back as it was. Want to give an alternative with a bit more tweakability? Fine, but do not impact thousands of users’ workflow.

Another abysmal changed forced upon us for no good reason.

zcal13mhm

Participant

Genuinely why have they done this

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Because the new method is so freaking much more capable. Do we have to ‘relearn’ how to mask? Yea, it takes a whopping 10 minutes or so, and you do have to read the documentation for it, as it is not going to be obvious how to handle the differences.

But then ... it saves a ton of time going to Ae to do a full rotoscope. I never liked rotoscoping in Ae, and am thrilled I don’t need to anymore.

When you make a mask now, right-click it and select ‘make opacity’ and you’ve got an opacity mask, which is something a lot of people miss at first.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

V

Victor CHM

Participating Frequently

Why change a simple, reliable tool to something this over engineered.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

The new masking is incredibly more powerful than the old one. I’m doing things that would have requried going to AE to rotoscope, which I avoided ... so I’m doing things I would have simply chosen not to do before. So the new tool is actually amazing.

It is different to use ... especially at first. And they didn’t make it obvious (why not ... who knows ...) but you can select the Opacity effect and tap a key-short an voila, you have a mask appear.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

j0El

Participating Frequently

You gotta be a bot. This new masking is HORRIBLE. It only selects half of my object I need masked. They should have absolutely left a manual option, at least until they worked out the bugs. Or don’t drop an update until the thing actually works. Manual was slow, but it got the job done. I literally have no way of doing the edit I need to do now. I’m so close to ending my sUbScRiPtiOn and things like this really push me closer to the edge.