Now in Beta: New Masking Tools

[Francis-Crossman]

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.
   Tools
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.

6. 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.

7. Congratulations, you just used Object Mask to blur an object!
8. 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.

[Ron Rigler]

The Clip/Frame options are only available for vector masks.

[_nicdean]

Shape Masks should continue to default to "Opacity" instead of the new "Unassigned" group

[FlyingFourFun]

Is there any reason why we cant have the same quality of selection that is available in PhotoShop (beta that is, as the selection tool for ondevice in the PS Beta is really solid) for this tool?

[ryanlaux]

Thanks for this adobe team! Love how fast the roto is. Agreed with the others that we need better refinement tools, the + and - clicking is too unspecific and isnt removing or grabbing things that are needed. Would love to see this model as a Rotobrush 4 though. 

So far the new Pen tool and shapes are a major improvement. I refused to masking in the current premiere due to the frustrating masks but this is a much needed change. 

[Arnold Nitin]

@ryanlaux Thanks for your feedback. Can you share specific examples where the "+" and "-" tools where not grabbing things as expected. 

[Dileepkumar_ind]

We are experiencing the same GPU render error while exporting projects in Premiere Pro. The render process fails with a GPU Render error message. We are using the new object mask tool and have added a Gaussian blur effect to blur some portions of the footage. This tool helps us quickly create masks and track objects automatically throughout the clip. It would be very helpful if anyone can guide us on how to troubleshoot and resolve this issue. Any advice or solutions are greatly appreciated

[Vikas Gahlaut]

Hi @Dileepkumar_ind 

Thank you for reporting this issue. To help us investigate further, could you please share the following details?

• Device, operating system, and graphics driver information

• Renderer selected in Project Settings

• Whether the issue also occurs with other media files

• Whether the issue persists when object masks are not applied

[Dileepkumar_ind]

Hi Vikas, we are using Hp Z8 workstation with Nvidia Quadra RTX 5000 graphic card (Driver Version:R570 U9 (573.73)) with windows 11 installed. The error is only happening when i use object mask tool, i am adding glaussian effect to blur masked content. Then we are getting the error. There is no issue when object mask tool is not applied.

[Dileepkumar_ind]

Renderer is GPU, software render is disabled. Project forcing to use GPU.

[Vikas Gahlaut]

Hi @Dileepkumar_ind thanks for providing the details. We were able to reproduce the issue and will update you once the fix is available in the public beta.

As a workaround, if possible, please try re-encoding the problematic media into another format, such as H.264 (.mp4) and use object mask.

[MisterAdvent]

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-Crossman]

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

[ryanlaux]

I just was testing it out the other day and took me a minute to figure out, but made a quick screencap of it. its not hard just different order of operations. 

https://youtu.be/8AtUUlRtjwU

[MisterAdvent]

Thank you!  That's what I was missing - drag the mask to the effect .

[CampaVmk]

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!

[Paul22121037igw0]

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.

[Arnold Nitin]

@Paul22121037igw0 Will reach out to in DM to understand more

[Pierre Louis B.]

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!

[Henk van der Velden]

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

[Pierre Louis B.]

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.

[Henk van der Velden]

You can just click and drag to select points and then drag while holding shift to constrain the axis. It's one extra step. 

[Ron Rigler]

We do include a Bounding Box for Rectangle and Pen masks, but we only default to showing it for Ellipse Masks. Double+click on a mask will toggle the Bounding Box mode.
One of the main complaints with the shipping masking is that it can be too easy to accidently rotate the shape when just trying to modify the poition of existing points. We added the Bounding Box to help address this issue.

[Pierre Louis B.]

Thanks for the tip Ron.  So your team has decided to not only hide the bounding box from rectangle masks, but even while visible, the ability to drag out any side is still hidden by the absense of side handles?  Would it kill your team to add side handle markers to show users that the sides can be dragged out?  Would it kill to keep things consistant, such that the bounding box shows up by default for all mask types, not just ellispes?  Would it kill to add a reverse Alt modifier, so that when pressed, rather than both sides stretching out equaly, only one side gets moved?  I imagine the reasoning was that side handles would get in the way of the black dot that allows users to feather a mask.  Why not place that dot in another spot or slightly away from the mask, with an icon that better represents what it actually does, such as a slightly larger circle with fade edges?

What is it with people that hate convenience and refuse to make things easier and more easily discoverable for everyone?  Why does the Pr team disrespect its users so much?   And yes, to withhold universally adopted software standards (even used by most other Adobe programs), is a form of disrespect to the end user!

For the Pr team to spend tons of money and resources on pointless AI features that few people will ever use, such as extend clip, something no serious pro will ever use, instead of addressing the dozens of little, frequently used tweaks that could be achieved with the same or less effort (including having side handles EVERYWHERE it makes sense to have them), is nonsense.

[_nicdean]

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]

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.