How to use photoshop masks/alphas as colour masks

[csscms]

Hi There,

Is it possible to use a Photoshop alpha or bitmap as a mask for Lumetri Color?

Or can you import paths from Photoshop and use them as a mask?

Also, is there a trick to combining separate masks (like combine, intersect or subtract etc)?

Considering Adobe makes Photoshop and Illustrator, I'm always surprised at how non-intuitive Premieres' masking tools are.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Ben

[Ann Bens]

You cannot compare Ps/Ai to Pr.

Nope, you cannot use paths etc in Lumetri use Ae instead.

[csscms]

Thanks for the reply, will use other apps.

"You cannot compare Ps/Ai to Pr"

It's supposed to be a selling point of Adobe. They have high-quality pen tools in other apps so when an app needs one, just copy it. Tool unification leads to easy of use, speed, conistant quality, and allows teams to better focus their budgets. This was one of the main PR talking points when Creative Suite was first announced.

"Nope, you cannot use paths etc in Lumetri use Ae instead."

Using After Effects for a simple task is overkill which is why Premiere has a pen tool to begin with. But it makes no sense that basic interaction with Premieres' pen tool should be worse than Photoshops'. 90% of the time in Premiere, you can't click where you want a point. It's maddening.

Rant over, sometimes you just need to scream at the sky.

Cheers

[R Neil Haugen]

Hey, rant away. We all need to do that at times.

The single-image apps, like Photoshop/Lightroom/Illustrator/InDesign are not at all engineered like the DVA ... digital video apps are. Virtually nothing works from one coding method to the other. So even on the things that "look similar" in the UI or to the user, they have nothing whatever in common under the hood.

They can't just copy how X works in say Photoshop into Premiere Pro. They'd have to look at the final result and the basic process in Photoshop, then completely from scratch create something sort of similar in Premiere Pro. Except, rather than being designed to work on one frame at a time, it's gotta be in code that can be run on 50 images a second if possible while also other things are being applied.

That's why things don't "translate" between apps ... it's a bugger to just do something sort of similar.

Neil

[csscms]

Thanks Neil, I wasn't actually talking about code - I fully understand the pen tool code isn't copy/paste unless Adobe re-writes everything. 

I was talking about how tools work, how they're designed, and what they're like to use. Interaction design is not only an enormous cost before and after coding, it greatly effects the success of a tool/app. 

100% of pen tool interaction design is done and is tested with decades of refinement. Why should Premiere create its own, sub-standard version?

Yes, Premiere's pen tool has less features but the features implemented should look, feel and work identically to other Adobe apps. This is better for Adobe and for Adobe customers. 

The inconsistencies overall look disorganised, or maybe that seperate competing teams are fighting for their way of doing things - it feels chaotic if you switch between lots of Adobe apps.

That recent shift-to-unconstrain Photoshop 'feature' is one of many terrible examples. Shift-to-constrain is fundamental so changing it on one tool in one app was super low-quality work from every angle - this stuff is a worrying trend. We already have Apple doing this kind of stuff which is why many of us switched to Premiere!

Cheers

[salvo34]

=============

Is it possible to use a Photoshop alpha or bitmap as a mask for Lumetri Color?

Or can you import paths from Photoshop and use them as a mask?

Also, is there a trick to combining separate masks (like combine, intersect or subtract etc)?

++++++++++++++

Basically, Yes. But it takes some work in psd and then save the psd files and import the layers you want to PPro. You can draw paths, make selections from those paths, then make new layer and then put the saved selection into that layer... 

The main thing is to know that black is alpha during this process... and white is opaque ( solid ). Anything in between is a blend between transparent and opaque. You have to sorta know how to build the psd files ( with layers, paths, selections etc ) to get to that point.. but it's well worth learning and doing.

You have to start by making a psd file with transparent background and then start adding layers so you can just SEE what you are doing... sorta complicated.. but it works great.. 

I make all my titles and graphics and so on using psd... and import to editor ( ppro or resolve ) using that.

Even rolling credits, I use psd.

You can use different video levels to stack what you want ( different psd imports or in your case 'variations' of the mask you make ) and then apply difference, tween the stuff, or whatever.

Unfortunately, I am an idiot and don't have a clue how to teach you this stuff... but don't listen to people who tell you it can't be done just with psd and ppro... that's nuts.

[salvo34]

there is a caveat... if using resolve... cause it hates psd exspecially it's xml export to send to another computer.... so I take the layer ( created from selection ) and that I want for a portion of doing stuff... ( with alpha etc. ) and just select THAT layer and export it as a separate png or jpg.. to put into resolve.. then resolve is happy.  Otherwise it is not happy so it's an extra step, but still well worth it, as psd is probably the best program for basic high end photo and painting and manipulation of images.

laugh all you want, but I learned how to use psd by painting a hand held zippo lighter while under house arrest back in 1990,, with dolphin tracking device on my ankle.   You use the tools and you can PAINT like as if you had a canvas and real paint ( no need to wait for oil paint to dry ).

[csscms]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. I have no issues painting/masking in Photoshop but based on the answers above, it seems you can't apply a mask or bitmap to an instance of Lumetri colour.

In the end, I used Premiere's pen tool which was unesasirly painful because 90% of the time, you can't place points where you need them - hence the long-winded rants above!

[R Neil Haugen]

I rarely have any troubles with the masking pen tool in Premiere. What sort of work ...perhaps many, many points? ... are you doing where it's a problem.

I do maximize the Program monitor and zoom in on the image magnification for fine work with masking. But I've not had problems. So it's useful to find out where this is bolloxing up for other users.

Neil

[csscms]

Thanks Neil,

I was zoomed in but 90% of the time I couldn't place a point where I needed because the icon would change to a rotate tool. Also, the tool and points don't look, feel or interact like other apps and critical complimentary tools like pan and zoom are either missing or use different shortcuts (it's time for an alternate set of suite-wide shortcuts).

At first, this seems ridiculous but it creates instant familiarity and as long as Adobe copied the app with the best version of a particular tool, there's no cause for complaint other than the usual 'it's different than it was'. 

In the end, I created the points in one pass, then went back and adjusted almost every one to fit. Much more painful than Photoshop where you might go back an adjust 4 or 5 points (for me at least). 

I suspect Adobe teams see consistency as a constraint at times but it's actually a strength which allows anyone familiar with tools in one app, to work identically in another. And this says nothing for the efficiency of using the same UX across as many apps as possible.

Yes, this would require company-wide leadership and a set of suite-wide shortcuts but it's totally possible. Over the years, I've noticed many others bemoaning inconsistencies, it's a huge opportunity that Adobe could leverage for itself and its users.

Cheers

Ben

[R Neil Haugen]

There are discrepancies between Pr and Ae for shortcuts/behaviors, and I've stood in discussions at NAB between Pr-centric and Ae-centric users debating ... aguing ... over which is the "proper" way to rectify this. I ain't gonna get inbetween those two camps. And you wanna mess with Photoshop ... one of the biggest user-bases out there.

Ain't but a few Premiere editors would be happy to take the changes to make key-shorts and options more like Photoshop.

Some that use both a lot would benefit from that change. The majority of each user-base would find them annoying at the very least.

Out of curiosity, did you maximize the Program monitor panel when making your mask? Full screen?

Neil

[csscms]

There's a right way and a wrong way to do this but the right way requires proper leadership. Not the design by committee approach many companies like Adobe often hide behind.

If it was me, I'd...

1. Create an Adobe Unity project.
2. Launch and promote the project as a benefit to multi-disciplined users and it's continuing five-year mission to unify common tools.
3. Get the Unity team to identify tools common to all apps.
4. Then Identify the evidence-based, tried and true way of executing tools (or the Adobe way of doing things).
5. The first release would be an alternative set of shortcuts that can be switched on/off using existing customisation tools.
6. e.g. There's no reason why zooming, panning, zoom-in to fit, or zoom-out to fit, should be different in every Adobe app. It doesn't matter if it's an art board, a video timeline, or audio. It's the exact same process and there's a fast way and a slow way of doing it. Just identify the fastest way and implement it everywhere. Many, many tools could benefit from this.
7. The customisation tools in most Adobe apps is wasted on most because people never use them (I've trained and managed many people over the years). Instead, release a thought-through set of intelligent defaults from a multi-discipline point of view. Again, evidence-based, tried and true, proven efficiencies.
8. Then start identifying tools within apps that could use more features and/or benefit from the Adobe way.
9. Slowly move tools towards the Adobe way. e.g. if Premiere's pen tool was incrementally moved towards Photoshop's, nobody would batter an eye once the five year mission was complete. 
10. But it takes proper leadership to stay the course. You have to ensure the Adobe way is better and you have to build trust and communicate what you're doing.
11. You're not dictating terms, you're focusing the entire company and taking users with you on the mission.
12. And if you get something wrong, you admit it and fix it.

An example of how not to do this, is how the Photoshop team recently changed shift-to-constrain, to shift-to-unconstrain. They did it on one tool, in one context, and only in one app. And to announce it? They sheepishly dropped it as small 'new feature' note to beta testers via the user-voice boards.

After it blew up, they didn't admit the mistake or fix it for months. Instead, they argued there were multiple consistency arguments. That's a red flag right there. If there are multiple consistency arguments, then you don't have a consistent outcome on the table. Some beta testers and YouTubers then dismissed the criticisms as 'you can't teach old dogs new tricks', suggesting the outcry was a generational issue.

But what the Photoshop team did, is the equivalent of Ford taking one type of car, and switching first gear with reverse but only when you're pulling into your driveway. Then only communicating the change to mechanics. Insane.

The silly thing is that 99% of the time, you want to constrain when resizing so the change itself is not stupid. But implementing it properly requires identifying the literally 1000s of places it's used in apps across the suite. It requires leadership to get all app teams on board. You have to communicate the upcoming change widely, with reasoning, with a change-over date and with plenty of time. You have to take people with you. You have to do it right.

Is it easy? Nope. Is it better in the long-run? Always.

[R Neil Haugen]

Don't be so sensible.

Remember, the M&E people are the ones actually running the show. They're the types who seem to get to all the top echelon positions. They study their metrics, they ... know ... far deeper than mere users. Or developers for that matter ...

sigh.

Neil