Does "Select and Mask" actually work?

Question

PS version 22.2.I have been trying to learn how to use Select and Mask to create detailed masks in landscape scenes; for example waterfronts or skies (yes - I know there is a select sky feature now). And for the life of me I can't get Select and Mask to do what I want or expect. I have read the Adobe Photoshop Users Guide (?) a.k.a. Adobe Photoshop Help (PDF version) and Adobe Photoshop Learn &  Support - Users Guide (webpage), and I have spent hours viewing YouTube videos. And also consulted Martin Evening's very good books on Photoshop for photographers. And what I come away with is a sense that no one really uses Select and Mask, at least not totegether as in the workspace. Google searches, YouTube searches, for Select and/or Mask find individual hits for Select or Mask - and if I do find a video which describes the Select and Mask workspace it merely gives a tour of the buttons and sliders and definitions as cane be found in the Adobe literature - nothing meaningful in how to create masks. Oh everyone gives the canned example of a persons hair against a unifrom color background.When I try to create a mask it is either within or outside of the boundry I am aiming for and I go back and forth pressing the Alt key to add to or remove from the mask and it only gets worse and worse. No amount of fiddling with radius size seems to make any difference.Anyone able to use Select and Mask worksapce with any success? Or am I wasting my time on something broken?Peter

mglush · Accepted Answer

Trying to recreate some of the cause and effects that Jesus demonstrated, particularly with the Global Refinements - Smooth, Feather, Contrast, and Shift Edge.

I see no difference in the edge definition between the two - the first image has the sliders at the default, the second I pulled all four sliders.

Here is the full image without mask overlay.

Peter

Hi!

The sliders you are talking about are to use after you have defined the area of transparency. It looks like you have the box for Show Edges still checked. Once you've made your selection, uncheck Show edges and change the view to another color like white or black depending on your image (this image had a med. blue background. Then once you can see the edge you can use the Refind Brush tool to refine the selection, and then use the sliders below to make adjustments. Here are a few screenshots to show you how the sliders work:

I have found that the shift edge slider works really well to get the selection tightened up to the image--especially ones like you have above. The samples below are just quick and dirty to give you an idea of what the sliders do. I would spend a lot more time refining the selection in a real-world project.

\

And here is the original

I hope this helps,

Michelle

davescm · Answer

Yes I use select and mask - but not for every masking job, it really does depend on the subject. Sometimes I will start with quick mask with select and mask, use refine edges for hair/fur edges and tidy up by painting directly on the resulting mask.

However, for smooth edge subjects, such as cars, I would start with the pen tool and create a path which I can convert directly to a vector mask.

For other subjects I might start with a channel, copy it, manipulate it and make a mask from that.

For some images I might use all three of the above. In short, select and mask has its place but there is no single mask method that works for every subject.

Dave

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