[Topaz Mask AI 1.0.2 Free Download
Luther Lazaro
Besides creating masks for selective, technical editing, masking unlocks endless creative possibilities in the way of composites. You can follow along step by step with this creative image masking tutorial to create a magical image composite of your own!
Although the Contrast mode would do the job, we're going to process this image with the AI mask mode, so you can experience it first-hand and avoid having to do a lot of refining. Click "Compute Mask" to generate your image mask.
By clicking "Background" and applying a temporary blue background color, we can see that we could use some foreground recovery and possibly some defringing. In the "Refine" tab, we have some post-processing sliders that can be a saving grace when it comes to quickly refining a mask!
Foreground Recovery revives the color of your foreground in weaker/more transparent areas after your image has been processed. This can be a great tool for fur, whiskers, or wispy hair, by bringing back more detail in areas of your image that are desaturated by the masking process. In this case, foreground recovery restores a tiny bit of the edges around the man and the rock.
Sometimes after masking, you may see a stubborn ring of pixels around your initial selection. This is known as an edge halo, fringing or matting. The Defringe slider desaturates the edges of your mask to help with color contamination and bleeding. Luckily, our mask doesn't have too much of this, but we can apply it to take care of the few white specks that are hanging around!
Mask AI allows you to adjust both the background and foreground of your image, so you can more seamlessly blend and adjust your composite. We'll make one minor tweak to the foreground before getting into the background.
As you'll be able to experience for yourself from the free trial of Mask AI, you can depend on Mask AI to tackle a wide range of masking jobs like flyaway hair, fuzzy fur, thick tree lines, and more with ease.
AI has surely become a catch phrase, and we are seeing it all the time in photography applications. Luminar touts AI and Topaz, and even Adobe is jumping on the AI Bandwagon. Topaz Mask AI is one of the latest apps using AI, and I put it to the test.
Outline your subject or object edges in blue with a paintbrush. Then fill the areas to be cut in red, such as a sky in my case. The interior of an object is defined in green, and you can use the paint bucket tool to quickly fill. Once that is done, there are tools to refine the mask.
When you are ready, you can replace the background. There is an auto-compute mode, or you can do more manually. In the auto mode, which is where the AI part comes in, the app will take a look at your image and make some guesses about what to mask and what to cut. On some images, it works perfectly. On many images, you need to help the selection along, painting in what to keep and what to cut.
Controls are pretty straightforward, but it helps to watch a tutorial or two first. In fact, when I started using the app, I could not find the button that computed the mask. Turns out, working on my laptop, I had to scroll the screen to see the button, because it was cut off my the window edge. When I made Mask AI larger, I was all set with no more hidden buttons.
Topaz Mask AI also offers a method besides AI, and that's a contrast mode for object detection. I found AI mode works best with hair, trees, fur, and detailed objects. The contrast mode is quicker, but picks up simpler objects for masking. Happily, you can try both on any image.
Still, the masking most of us want to do is not just sky replacement. On portraits with wispy hair, Luminar has no solution, and Topaz Mask AI did a very credible job. The AI was an advantage, because even while I roughly outlined people in a photo, the AI could usually figure out the difference between the subject and the background. On non-sky replacement tasks, Mask AI was able to best Photoshop and Luminar.
Speed on my MacBook Pro was fine, and of course, there are both Mac and Windows versions of this app. There are small delays as the computation takes place, but I never felt the need to read a web page or get some coffee while it was working. Most operations are just a few seconds. There is an on-screen percentage counter to tell you how it is doing.
The AI is built into the brushes Topaz uses to define objects. They can be changed in size and are pretty good at edge detection, which is the heart of the smart masking process. As mentioned, Topaz Mask AI also uses a paint bucket tool to quickly define large portions of an image, and the bucket can be configured to cut, keep, or compute an area, same as the brush tool.
For operations like sky replacement, the use of the AI term is not a good fit. Replacing a sky if there are trees or detailed objects is generally not automatic, although the AI does help cut your time down. If you are simply separating a mountain range from a sky background, Mask AI works perfectly. Trees and other details will often trick the AI and require more adjustment. The upcoming Luminar 4 simply blows away any other product that offers sky replacement, because it generally figures out where the sky is regardless of how complex the foreground.
On the other hand, Mask AI moves the state of the art forward in terms of making the tedious task of masking easier, Topaz has given us some very smart tools, and they certainly will speed up your workflow.
The market is not standing still. Adobe added an Object Selection tool in Photoshop 2020. There are two variations: rectangle and lasso. You can drag over an object and Photoshop selects it for you, using some sophisticated object and edge detection algorithms.
I approach Topaz Mask AI as mostly a landscape photographer. For portrait and wedding photographers, it's going to be even more useful. I would not want Mask AI to be my only tool for editing, of course, but it does some things so well I'll continue to use it.
Topaz Mask AI is a powerful tool, and if you are replacing backgrounds with complex objects or people in the foreground, it's worth a close look. Topaz has offered a free downloadable trial on the Topaz website, and you can buy Mask AI for an introductory price of $69.99, which will soon be $99.99.
Based on the headline, I thought the comparison was going to be with the older Topaz ReMask vs. Topaz Mask AI to evaluate the "AI" component to the equation, since from an interface standpoint the two appear to be identical and Topaz has always claimed to be kind of magical in its clipping capabilities. With the new AI version, Topaz simply claims "Less user input for an extremely high-quality mask," but for $49 on top of a previously-paid non-AI Topaz ReMask purchase, it would be nice to know specifically what AI is adding.
That being said, I think the Luminar program *could* have some very good applications for real estate photographers but there does not appear to be a trial option to check it out before irrevocably committing to the purchase.
Luminar 4's I sky replacement will tell you when you need to try a different program - when you open the "AI Sky Replacement" menu within the "Creative" mode, the panel immediately under "AI Sky Replacement", reading "Sky Selection", will simply fail to light up. Meaning you won't be able to click on it, and select a replacement sky, in Luminar 4's AI sky replacement program.
So I use Luninar 4. While Topax Mask AI will not work as a plug in for Luminar jt is very easy in Mask AI to export the mask and then bring it in as a new image layer at 100% opacity. Create a Luminosity mask in Luminar, copy the mask so it can be pasted into any Luminar tool that has masking.
But Luminar does a great job with portraits and I used the mask to do background replace (a feature woefully absent from Luminar although they already have the technology nailed in their sky replacement tool.) just dropped in a nice bokeh BG and sent them the snapshot. It would never hold up being enlarged to hang on the wall but it looks fine on a computer screen.
Being able to easily blur the background is one of the great features of this program. Especially if you want to keep it as natural looking as possible (as opposed to doing digital art) while removing background distractions.
Hi Tyson , I just got remask 4,my host application is PS6. I want to swap the background in an image,so I have the background to use open in cs6,When I create a mask in remask, click OK to go back to PS6 I was expecting to see the image I want to place my mask on to in the layers panel, but it only contains the masking layers , so how do I get to place the masked image on to the new background?
Probably something simple I have missed.
Many thanks Paul T
During photo editing, creating complex selections by hand and perfecting them almost always takes way longer than expected. Meet Topaz Mask AI. Mask AI allows you to create tricky masks (such as hair or tree branches) in record time with their new machine learning technology and trimap technique. It is currently 30% off for the launch sale if you want to check it out. Ending soon: Topaz Mask AI at 30% Off
Their smart brushes (Cut, Keep, and Compute) utilize their technology and enable you to make clean and accurate refinements without the pressure of painting perfectly. Their machines will make the decisions for you and speed up your workflow!
Use the post-processing sliders to perfect your mask quickly. The Edge Softness slider comes in handy if you want to add more sharpness to a rocky landscape, or perhaps soften the edges for a portrait.
Blur the background, or select a new image or a solid color for a completely new look. You can also adjust both the background or foreground, or your composite image to create a beautifully blended photo.
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