Who here hates the new mask UI and function

Question

The 2026 masking redesign is a major step back for professional editors. Premiere’s main advantage is speed. This update ruins that by burying the Pen and Shape tools in sub-menus.

By forcing the toolbar to create "Unassigned Masks," you have broken decades of muscle memory. A single click is now a multi-step process. Additionally, the new logic prevents basic effects like Drop Shadow from rendering correctly without nesting.

Speed is the reason I use Premiere. Adding more clicks is not "cleaning up the UI." It is a tax on productivity. Please return the legacy masking icons to the top level of the Opacity header.

R Neil Haugen · Answer

I understand theinitialanger and frustration. Because, if you haven’t read through the entire section of their help on the way masking works now, you just can’t make it work ... or ... it’s slower than molasses in January. In Alberta. Outdoors. Yep.But ... have you read how the new systemworks?That’s a serious question ... as another user who intitially went ... what the ... hay? ... when I saw this in the public beta. It was just weird at first. Frustrating, slow, and how in blazes are you supposed to do things?So I finally did take the time to read up on it. Out of total frustration. Butonce you have, and work with it a few minutes,it is at timesonekeyboard tap more work (what, half second or so?) ... and for that ‘drudge’, adds things we couldneverdo without going to AfterEffects to Rotoscope.So yea, it took a bit to relearn muscle memory ... but what I got was something way more powerful andusablethan I’d ever been able to do in Premiere.And I’ve never been a fan of going into AE if I can avoid it ...

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded