OnOne Perfect Mask - NIK Control Point

[rpcrowe]

Philippe,

I meant to place this as an answer to your query on selections/masking Using masking tool but somehow ended up with a separate topic...

Although I do respect the power of layers in Photoshop, I usually do my selection masking with either OnOne Perfect Mask (which you have and which does support layers) and which is excellent or with the NIK Control Point Technology (specially when using the Viveza component of the NIK Software Suite) my favorite. There are many excellent YouTube tutorials on using both Perfect Mask and NIK Control Point Technology.

I have recently completed a two part seminar "The Power of Layer Masks in Photoshop" presented by John Watts of Watts Digital Imaging, San Diego. John has been doing custom printing since the analog days of the 1908's...

www.wattsdigital.com

John provides these ongoing seminars at minimal cost (five U.S. Dollars per 2 hour seminar) and is a guru in the use of layer masks. His book "Not Just Another Photoshop Book" is available through his website in a PDF version for $20 USD and in hard copy for $40 USD plus shipping and has in depth information.

We are invited to send images to John through his website and he works ot these images in the seminars.

Although I like the Control Point Technology of NIK Software for making my selections and corrections, I am able to gain a lot of insight in this technology through John's lectures.

John espouses two strategies used in creating and working with layer masks

#1: Create adjustment layer and work on your layer masks with selection tools
Best to use where the area in your image that you want to isolate is NOT SHARPLY DELINEATED in brightness or color

#2: Make your selection before you create an adjustment layer and then create the layer
Best to use where the area that you want to isolate IS SHARPLY DELINEATED

More about these techniques in John's book and on John's Website which contains loads of other great information.

John even teaches a method of dodging and burning using layer masks. To tell you the truth, I did not quite understand this method and since I use Viveza and Control Point Technology for most of my burning and dodging I did not spend too much effort to comprehend his technique.

John has been a judge in both the San Diego County Fair and Orange County Fair photo competitions since the mid-90's. His next month's seminar is directed at presenting work, through a judge's point of view, to these major photo competition. Since the entry deadlines for submission to these competitions is coming shortly this is an opportune time to pick John's brain.

The nice thing about entering these competitions is that entries are submitted electronically in JPEG for a start. Only when you pass this initial hurdle do you need to make a print for actual contest judging. This saves a lot of effort and cost. I am looking forward to gaining information and hopefully will get off my duff and submit an image or two this year.

[Manfred M]

John - there are so many different ways of creating masks in Photoshop and the subject being masked is what drives the approach. I owned the OnOne software and found their masking routes quite rudimentary, and the Nik control points are not particularly accurate, so I use them only when I need a very rough mask in conjunction with using . I normally just use the Nik output and manually add the mask; I find this much cleaner and easier than trying to do an accurate mask with control points.

I've recently started to use luminosity masks, using the colour channels, and this approach can be very fast. Using the pen tool to create masks is super accurate, but a bit slow, and not great for hair and leaves.

Layer masks and clipping masks are part of my daily workflow.