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Francis-Crossman17221443
Community Manager
Francis-Crossman17221443Community Manager
Community Manager
September 1, 2025
Answered

[Now Released] New Masking Tools

  • September 1, 2025
  • 45 replies
  • 56166 views

We’re excited to push an early development preview of new masking workflows to Premiere Pro (beta).  Whether you are color grading, applying effects, or cutting objects out from the background, these new masking tools are built to help editors work faster, smarter, and more creatively without needing to go to After Effects for simple tasks.

 

Note: This beta is an early look at upcoming Premiere Pro workflows and is not intended to reflect general availability performance or polish. Please contact us with bugs, feedback, and feature requests to improve these features.

 

  • Object Mask – Automatically identify objects and people in your footage using AI and isolate them with a single click. Plus mask refinement tools and fast tracking throughout clips.
  • Redesigned Shape Masks – the traditional shape mask tools (ellipse, rectangle, pen) have been rebuilt from the ground up with many performance and UI improvements.
  • Faster Shape Mask Tracking – the tracking algorithm has been completely rebuilt too.  It’s significantly faster than before, more accurate, and offers more precise control for correction.
  • Compositing tools – blend any combination of Object and Shape Masks to create complex masks with new blend modes: add, subtract, intersect

 

Quick Start guide

Follow these steps to get started with New Masking.

  1. Make sure you have enabled New Masking (see above).
  2. Select a clip on the timeline.
  3. Find the new Mask Tool group in the toolbar. Long-press to see all the masking options. Choose the Object Mask tool.

     

  4. Hover the mouse over the program monitor, watch as objects are identified, and click. This will draw a static mask around the object or person.
  5. Track the motion. Find the new “Object Mask” in the “Unassigned Masks” section of the Effect Controls Panel. Click on the forward and back button.

    Tip: the Effects panel is a different panel from the Effect Controls Panel. Find it in the Window menu.

  1. Add an effect. Find the Gaussian blur effect in the Effect Panel. Drop it on the clip in the timeline. The mask will automatically be applied to the effect.

  1. Congratulations, you just used Object Mask to blur an object!
  2. Now, try to use the other tools in the group in a similar manner.

 

Visit here for the complete documentation. https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/object-masking.html

 

We want to know what you think.  Join the conversation below.

    Correct answer kes_akalaonu

    Make sure to right click on the tracked mask in the Effect Controls and select Change to Opacity Mask. Duplicate your video and remove the tracked opacity mask and placed that on V1 and your masked layer on V3 or above. Place your graphics on V2 and it should show up.

    45 replies

    Show previous replies
    O
    O'Nifemi_
    Participant
    October 10, 2025

    Step-by-Step Process:


    Convert Tracked Mask to Opacity Mask
    Right-click your tracked mask in the Effect Controls panel and select "Change to Opacity Mask" to activate mask-based transparency effects [2].


    Duplicate Video Layer

    Create a duplicate of your original video clip
    Remove the tracked opacity mask from this duplicated layer

     

    Layer Arrangement

    Place the duplicated layer (without mask) on Video Track 1 (V1)
    Position your masked layer (with opacity effects) on Video Track 3 (V3) or higher
    Add your graphics/elements to Video Track 2 (V2)

     

    This stacking order ensures proper visibility:

    V1: Clean background video
    V2: Overlay graphics
    V3+: Masked effects layer

    The graphics on V2 will now appear sandwiched between the base video and masked layer for controlled compositing.

      K
      Adobe Employee
      kes_akalaonu
      Adobe Employee
      October 10, 2025

      We have shortcuts in the beta that allow for you to promote an unassigned mask to opacity and restore it to unassigned as well. You can do the right click method and drag a mask to Opacity.

        R
        roman_9654
        Participant
        October 10, 2025

        The regular mask doesn't work in the beta version. It's impossible to change the position, size, or animate a regular, non-object mask. The path isn't created or moved; the mask stays in place, and its position and size can't be moved.

        K
        Adobe Employee
        kes_akalaonu
        Adobe Employee
        October 10, 2025

        You can. In the program monitor, chnage from Clip to Frame and it will allow you create keyframes for non object mask.

        M
        muhammad_9995
        Participant
        October 9, 2025

        The new masking tools in Premiere Pro Beta are a big step forward  especially the AI-powered Object Mask and improved shape tracking. These updates make editing faster and reduce the need to switch to After Effects for simple masking tasks. I’ve been exploring similar creative tech enhancements on Touch Cric , where speed and precision also matter for delivering live visuals smoothly. Adobe’s direction here clearly focuses on smarter, more efficient workflows for editors.

          L
          Logan_Barney5958
          Participating Frequently
          October 8, 2025

          First of all, I'm really glad to see features like this being explored in Premire. Resolve's AI masking has been something I wish I had in my toolbox for a while.

          I'm mainly giving feedback on the object tracker here: it's amazingly quick, seems to find subjects in videos with no issue, and tracks them with 90% accuracy with one click. Amazing! BUT!
          The model is too flickery/chattered/indecisive to be useful at all. For example: If I'd like to mask a subject, then invert it and apply color correction to the background with the subject cut out, I can see the flicker of the mask around the subject in a major way. Feathering, expanding, or modifying the mask with the Add or Subtract tools can't help fix it.
          All in all, this is a useful feature that I'll be keeping an eye on, but in its current state: I'd like to see refinements to the model that improve its edge detection and consistency.

          A
          Adobe Employee
          Arnold Nitin
          Adobe Employee
          October 9, 2025

          @Logan_Barney5958 Thanks for the feedback. I will reach out to via DM to get additional details on what you are seeing.  

          F
          fierce_Mercury8940
          Participant
          October 8, 2025

          البرنامج يعطيني اشارة انتظار مجرد الضغط على الاداة

           

          A
          Adobe Employee
          Arnold Nitin
          Adobe Employee
          October 13, 2025

          @fierce_Mercury8940 Can you please share a screenshot of the problem you are seeing.

          _nicdean
          Community Expert
          _nicdeanCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          October 6, 2025

          How can users move the Mask Anchor Point? It is centered in the Mask when it is created, but does not update when you move individual mask points. So the Mask Shape scales and rotates from the wrong point. The Mask anchor point is not selectable with any mouse-based tools.

           

           

          TrentHappel
          Adobe Employee
          TrentHappel
          Adobe Employee
          October 6, 2025

          You can move the anchor point by holding down Alt/Opt key then drag the anchor point. This was done to in the hopes to easily avoid moving it by mistake. Let us know how you feel about that.

          _nicdean
          Community Expert
          _nicdeanCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          October 6, 2025

          Ah, I see. Option+click is fine. You can add a tooltip on-hover of the Anchor Point so that is more obvious. It also needs snapping to the 4 corners, edges, and center point with "Ctrl" / "Cmd".

           

          Why do Graphic Shapes scale from the corners, but Mask Shapes scale from the center?

           

          A big disconnect to me is why the Mask bounding box behavior is different from Graphic Shapes. They scale from different points, have different UI for rounded corners, have different Anchor Point behavior, and different keyboard shortcuts (like Shift). If you draw a box with Mask vs. Shape, they have to be edited in totally different ways.

           

          All Points & Shapes should be editable in more or less the same way.

            P
            Pierre Louis B.
            Known Participant
            October 6, 2025

            Just tried it.  The first thing I noticed: NO SIDE HANDLES in rectangular masks!  Why do you guys HATE your users to the point you wouldn't even put as simple a feature as side handles??????!!!!!!!!

             

            Adobe = one step forward, two steps back

             

            For the love of god FIX THIS!  Or are you going to make us beg for the simplest of features like you did years ago by withholding side handles in the crop tool for years?! 

             

            Seeing the absolute calousness with which you treat your users, that's one step closer for me to jump ship to DaVinci Resolve.  I've absolutely had it with the way Adobe disrespects its paying users by refusing to provide the most basic functionality imaginable.  Inexcusable!

            H
            Henk van der Velden
            Participating Frequently
            October 6, 2025

            In my opinion they covered this with the SHIFT update they recently added. Which works to constrict all points on one axis.

            P
            Pierre Louis B.
            Known Participant
            October 6, 2025

            Using SHIFT takes 3 steps instead of one:

            1. select point in one corner

            2. select point in other corner while holding Shift

            3. drag newly selected point while holding Shift to constrict movement to up/down or left/right

             

            VERSUS

             

            1. grab any side handle and grad.

             

            In which universe are 3 highly undiscoverable steps for the average user better than 1 highly discoverable/easy one?

             

            So yes, my opinion continues: Adobe simply doesn't care about their users (at least not enough to give us the most basic of tools such as side handles!  If I was a programer, I'd be ashamed to put out half baked junk like this, and knowing Adobe's record, they probably won't add side handles for years.  That's what they did with the crop tool debacle years ago.  Another example of how they don't care is when they got rid of the Titler, they didn't give us the most basic of tools to replace it, such as Alt drag the side of a rectangle to change both oposing sides at the same time.  Photoshop and Illustrator have this.  Premiere Pro used to have this.  But not anymore now that the geniuses in the Pr team 'improved' it.  As I said before:  Adobe = one step forward, two steps back

             

            I know I might sound harsh.  But the harshness of my words are nothing compared to the pain Adobe causes to their users by constanly breaking things and making things worse than need be, all because they simply don't care to do better.  I could give dozens of examples, including how they give the middle finger to world wide software conventions (ex. Shift- and Ctrl- selecting multiple items doesn't work as per convention, including all other Adobe software, and inexplicably even differs from one part of Pr to another), but I think everyone gets the point.

            P
            Paul22121037igw0
            Participant
            October 2, 2025

            I was hoping I could use this to give a nice clean mask to head and shoulders footage, and drop the background image in, but the mask edges are way too pixely to be used, and not enough tools to tweak smoothness or the amount of points being tracked etc.
            It also takes quite a while - 17 minutes for 1 minute of footage for similar results to what Teams or Zoom does in realtime.
            As a back up I used Colour Key and that gave much better results.

            A
            Adobe Employee
            Arnold Nitin
            Adobe Employee
            October 13, 2025

            @Paul22121037igw0 Will reach out to in DM to understand more

            C
            CampaVmk
            Participant
            September 26, 2025

            Me costo entender que hacer una vez se haya creado la mascara nueva, pero rápidamente arrastrando logre entender las posibilidades y si, era lo que estuve esperando desde siempre. ME ENCANTO!!!, muchas gracias por incorporarlo, funciona genial!

            M
            MisterAdvent
            Inspiring
            September 23, 2025

            Has anyone done a tutorial video on how to use the new masks?  I was trying to matte out a section of a lock down camera and couldn't figure it out.  Had to make a black & white mask and do track matte key to finally do it.

            Francis-Crossman17221443
            Community Manager
            Francis-Crossman17221443Community ManagerAuthor
            Community Manager
            September 23, 2025

            We have not made any tutorials just yet.  We typically don't make tutorials for features that are just in Beta.  But we will certainly have learning materials available when we release this in the full version.  In the meantime you may be able to find your answer in the documentation here: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/object-masking.html

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