Topaz Labs Blog

Topaz ReMask Best Practices

Posted on 05. Oct, 2009 by Eric Yang in Tutorials

Some best practices to follow while using Topaz ReMask:

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Transcript

“Hi, this is Eric from Topaz Labs. In this video tutorial I’ll talk about some best practices to use with our Photoshop masking and extraction tool, Topaz ReMask, in order to get great masks. I will assume that you’re already familiar with the basic operation of Topaz ReMask – if you’re not, please take a look at the Quick Start tutorial before watching this one.

One important thing to understand about Topaz ReMask is the purpose of the user-created tri-map. Here’s a screenshot of a tri-map in Quick Mask mode.

As you might have guessed, the purpose of the tri-map is to sample colors. This means that wherever you paint white, Topaz ReMask will look at that section and determine that those colors are meant to be kept. Wherever you paint black, ReMask looks at it and determines that those colors are meant to be removed. Wherever you paint gray, ReMask will take the samples gathered in the black and white areas to figure out what the gray areas should be.

This means that, to get good masks, there’s a couple of things to keep in mind. We’ll demonstrate all of these in an example afterwards.

First, you must try to sample as many colors as possible. The more white and black you have in your trimap, as opposed to just splotching the whole thing gray, the more accurate your mask will be.

Second, because of the way Topaz ReMask works, you must sample in enclosed areas. Let’s say for example you’re trying to extract a donut. You must paint at least a little bit of black in the hole in order for it to be cut out correctly.

Finally, just like any other method, it is highly likely that the generated mask is not perfect at first. That’s why it’s possible in Topaz ReMask to easily refine the generated mask.

Let’s take a look at an example that incorporates all three of these tips. Here’s a parrot that I want to extract.

The very first thing I do is to create a duplicate of the layer, and a layer mask on that duplicate. Then, I’ll go into quick mask mode by pressing the backslash key above the Return or Enter key. Then, I get my brush tool and change the color to gray – it doesn’t really matter what shade of gray, and start painting the edges to create my tri-map. Note that when you’re in quick mask mode, the gray turns into red in order to help you see it better. Also note that I’m using a relatively small brush. The smaller the gray brush, the more white and black there’ll be in the tri-map, which means the more colors will get sampled. In general, using a smaller gray brush will always give you better results.

So now that I’m done with gray, I take the paint bucket tool and set it to black. I’ll then start filling in the spots that I want ReMask to throw away. Note that I must put a little bit of black to sample in the enclosed area of the beak, or else it won’t be cut out correctly.

Now, remember when I said that you should try to sample as many colors as possible? This applies especially when image features that you want kept are sticking out like these parrot claws. It’s good to paint white over these features, otherwise Topaz ReMask won’t know that you mean to keep them.

This also applies to any area that you think might not be sampled correctly. You don’t need to paint the entire thing accurately, but you do need to get at least a little bit of that color so ReMask knows that you want to keep it.

So here’s your finished tri-map. From here all you need to do is make sure to select the layer instead of the layer mask, and go to Filter, Topaz Labs, Topaz ReMask.

This is what Topaz ReMask gets you. For a better view of how the extraction looks, I can create another layer below the ReMasked layer and fill it with a bright solid color. As you can see, the first pass is fairly accurate.

There are, however, a few imperfections in the mask, like here underneath the claws, or right above the tail, or between the feathers on the head. This is to be expected – all masking methods require a degree of refinement for best results.

Refining with Topaz ReMask is quick and easy. Remember, ReMask works by sampling similar color, so all we need to do to perfect this mask is specify that we don’t want the imperfections by painting it over with black or white, and then use THAT as a tri-map for it to process. Let’s do that now.

So here I’ll hide the bright green layer and select the mask layer again. In order to see what I’m doing, I’ll press the backslash key again above the Enter or Return key to go into Quick Mask mode. Now I’ll get out my brush tool and paint away a bit of the imperfections in the mask. This makes the tri-map even more accurate.

Now that you’ve specified which parts are imperfections, you can take a small gray brush and paint over the previously inaccurate edges again. It’s important that this time the gray brush be very small.

Let’s finish up the image like this, and then select the layer instead of the layer mask and go to Filter, Topaz Labs, and Topaz ReMask for a second pass. It processes once more and takes the new information into account, and you’re left with a much more accurate mask with no artifacting. And that’s it! This whole process, including my explanation, took only a couple of minutes. After becoming proficient with ReMask, you’ll be zipping through many masks at less than a minute each. This is one of the major advantages of not having a user interface and being able to stay directly in Photoshop itself.

So to recap, there are three best practices to keep in mind in order to get good masks. First, try to accurately sample as many colors as possible in the image with your tri-map. Second, always sample at least a little bit within enclosed areas. Third, refine your mask in order to make it perfect. Keeping these three simple things in mind, Topaz ReMask can do a fast and excellent job on extracting a wide variety of images.”

Tags: best practices, remask, tutorial