Mask in Premiere Pro

[duggarts]

Hi everyone ,

              This is going to be dificult to explain but I'll try my best t o explain and I am quite sure that  a lot  you fine folks will understand what I am talking about and you will have all of the answers.

Mask ;  It is seen very often usually on the newsacasts .  There  is a background clip of a scene and then in the  left / right  hand corner of the frame over the scene clip there is a "mask close up cut-out  "  still photo of the person's face who is related to the scene clip.

Example :   Layer -1 : Background  video clip of crowded beach.

                    Layer - 2 :  In the upper left hand corner of frame  over the beach clip , there is a "mask clip cut-out "  of swimmer who the sea bathers said was attack by a big fish.

Question : How is this "mask effect "  done ?

Thanks very much in advance.

[ah_photo]

As someone who works in news, this is actually something that can be done very quick and dirty (and sometimes needs to be.) and often not even with the necessity of a mark. If I'm understanding, you're just saying a photo or a mugshot thats laid over b-roll of say the scene?

V2: Photo you want to show

V1: B-roll layer

• If necessary, use the Crop effect on the photo to crop down the image to see only what you want to
• Resize and position the photo where you want with Scale/Position.
• Add a drop shadow to the pic, and effects to the b-roll if you like (a blur or slight opacity drop).

If you're talking about a little more design control like with a Picture in Picture or OTS (over the shoulder) as we call them, you could make a sequence of what you want in the PiP, then add that sequence on the top layer of your main sequence and do something similar to the above: position/scale/etc.

[duggarts]

Thanks But how do you get the perfect “ mask shape “ cut out of the person’s face ?

[ah_photo]

Are you saying you want the cutout to be specifically be only the shape of the person's face (as opposed to a box around it)? If so, then yes you'd need to mask the layer (probably with the pen for mask drawing to draw a bezier mask). I usually just mask the Opacity parameter.

Masking and Tracking in Premiere Pro

[Meg The Dog · Accepted solution]

To go from this:

To this:

Click on the headshot in the timeline to select it, then go to the Effect Controls panel and use the pen tool to create an Opacity Mask:

By drawing with points around the area you want to masked:

MtD

[duggarts]

Thanks very much again , that’s exactly what I want to learn how to do : cut out a complete shape of a person’s face , blend and shape the mask cut out and reposition it to a different location.

[Kristian Gabriel]

Just as an addition to what's already been said in using Premiere MASKS in conjunction with OPACITY in the EFFECTS CONTROLS PANEL or other methods--if you need cleaner more detailed selection, you can use the more powerful selection tools and features in Photoshop like SELECT & MASK. This is a feature which allows you to get finer detail in selecting things like hair and grass. Once you make a selection in Photoshop, you can just save it as a Photoshop file (PSD) and import directly into Premiere.

[duggarts]

Thanks, but I don't know Photoshop that's why I am asking how to do it in Premiere Pro.

[duggarts]

Thanks very much Meg The Dog , that's EXACTLY the mask effect that I was talking about , you nailed it MTD.  And also thanks very much also to everyone else for your responses.