This tutorial introduces you to one of Corel PHOTO-PAINT's most important features masks. Begin by exploring some of the basic concepts associated with creating and using masks. Then, learn how to select shapes and colors in your image, how to transform and edit selections, and how to save your masks in channels or on disk.

Select a topic:

Learn about mask terminology

Use masks to select shapes

Use masks to select colors

Transform mask shapes

Expand and reduce selections

Save masks

Masks are simple selection tools that let you optimize the retouching capabilities of Corel PHOTO-PAINT. Put simply, masks isolate the area that you want to protect from change when you apply color, filters, or other effects to an image.

Before you can use masks to make selections, you must understand some basic concepts.

Select a topic:

Learn about masks and selections

Learn about regular masks

Learn about color-sensitive masks

Learn about mask marquees

Learn about mask modes

Learn about mask channels

Suppose you have a rectangular piece of acetate with holes cut into it. If you lay this over top of a picture and spray paint at it, the paint affects the picture only where there are holes cut in the acetate. Masks operate in exactly the same way, defining those regions of your image that you can change (the editable regions), and those you can't.

When you select part of an image using a tool from the Mask Tools flyout, the area you select is editable and the area surrounding the selection is masked or protected.

In the following image, the area inside the square is editable and the rest of the image is masked. Changes that you make to the image affect the area inside the square only.

Regular masks are used to select shapes on an image. The regular mask tools appear in the Mask Tools flyout.

Selects rectangluar shapes on your image.

Selects circular or elliptical shapes on your image.

Selects irregular shapes on your image using a combination of straight line segments and curves.

Selects an irregular shape on your image by painting over it.

Color-sensitive masks are used to select colors on your image. The color-sensitive mask tools are available in the Mask Tools flyout; however, you can also create color-sensitive masks using the Color Mask dialog box.

Selects colors within a defined area on your image.

Selects areas on your image based on contrasting colors.

Selects adjacent colors on your image.

Note

The Mask Scissors tool can also be used to select freehand areas on your image.

Mask marquees are dashed outlines that mark the border between selected and masked areas on your image.

By default, mask marquees are visible on your images; however, you can hide the marquees to display a more accurate representation of your image in the Image Window. Simply click the Marquee Visible command in the Mask menu to show or hide the mask marquee.

If a check mark appears beside the command, the marquee is visible; if a check mark does not appear beside the command name, the marquee is hidden.

Tip

Because images vary in color from very light to very dark, you can change the color of mask marquees to make them more visible on your image. Customizing the color of this on-screen indicator makes it easy to identify precise areas and outlines on your image.

There are four mask modes: Normal, Additive, Subtractive, and XOR.

Use the Normal mode (default) to create a single mask on your image. Use the Additive mode to add to the selected areas on your image. Use the Subtractive mask mode to remove sections from the selected areas on your image. And use the XOR mode to create complex masks in which overlapping areas are protected.

You can access the mask modes in any of the following ways:

Click Mask menu, Mode, and then click Normal, Additive, Subtractive, or XOR.

Click the Normal, Additive, Subtractive, or XOR buttons on the Property Bar.

Click the Normal, Additive, Subtractive, or XOR buttons in the Color Mask dialog box.

Click a mask tool and press CTRL to invoke the Additive mode, SHIFT to invoke the Subtractive mode and CTRL + SHIFT to invoke the XOR mode.

Mask channels are temporary storage areas for masks. When you create a mask channel, Corel PHOTO-PAINT makes a copy of the active mask and stores it in a channel where you can access and re-use it in the image.

In fact, you can save many different masks in mask channels and alternate among them as you work on an image. Mask channels are displayed in the Channels Docker window.

Because mask channels are only temporary storage areas, they are no longer available when you open another image. If you want to save masks so that they can be applied to any image at any time, you can save them to disk.

Tip

If you save an image in a file format that does not support mask information, all mask channels are lost when you close the image.

Click here to learn more about masks.

The following procedures show you how to use masks to select shapes on your image. After you select a shape, you can edit the selection without affecting the surrounding image.

Select a topic:

Select a rectangle

Select a circle

Select an irregular shape

Paint a selection

If you want to edit a rectangluar area on your image without affecting the rest of the image, you can use the Rectangle Mask tool.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click the Normal mask mode button on the Property Bar.
3. Click and drag to select the rectangular area on your image.

The area that you selected is now editable. This means that you can apply paint strokes or special effects to that area without affecting the rest of the image.

The best way to test your selection is to paint across the entire image using one of the Brush tools.

You can also select circular areas on an image.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Circle Mask tool.
2. Click the Additive Mask mode button on the Property Bar.
3. Click and drag to select the circular area on your image.

The area enclosed by the circular marquee is now editable. Because you created the circular mask in the Additive Mask mode, you can now apply paint strokes or special effects to both the rectangular and circular areas without affecting the rest of the image.

Use the Freehand Mask tool to select irregular shapes on your image.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Freehand Mask tool.
2. Click the Subtractive mask mode button on the Property Bar.
3. Click and drag inside the rectangular or circular selection.
4. Double-click to finish.

Because you used the Subtractive Mask mode, the area that you selected is no longer editable (i.e., it is subtracted from the original selection).

If you apply paint strokes or special effects to the selected areas on your image, the irregular shape inside the rectangular or circular selection is not affected.

Another way to select abstract areas on your image is to paint over the areas that you want to select using the Mask Brush tool.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Mask Brush tool.
2. Click the XOR mask mode button on the Property Bar.
3. Click and drag across the image.

If you paint over areas that are already selected, those areas are removed from the selection (i.e., a mask covers all overlapping areas). If there are no overlapping areas, all the areas you define are incuded in a single selection.

Click here to learn more about masks.

The following procedures show you how to use masks to select colors on your image. After you select a color you can edit the selection without affecting the surrounding image.

Select a topic:

Select colors in a particular area on an image

Select colors anywhere on an image

Select adjacent colors on an image

You can select colors within a particular area on your document using the Lasso Mask tool.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Lasso Mask tool.
2. Click the Normal Mode button on the Property Bar.
3. Click the Normal tolerance button on the Property Bar.
4. Type a value in the Color Tolerance box on the Property Bar.
5. Click to establish an anchor point, move to the next position, and continue clicking at different points until the area is selected.
6. Double-click to set the mask.

The color of the pixel that you specified as an anchor point and all other pixels in the defined area that fall within the specified color tolerance range are masked or protected.

Tip

You can also use the Lasso Mask tool as a freehand tool to select areas on your image.

If you want to select a specific color anywhere on your image, you can create a color-sensitive mask.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Click Mask menu, Color Mask.
2. Click the Normal mask mode button at the top of the Color Mask dialog box.
3. Choose Sampled Colors from the color options list box.
4. Click the Eyedropper tool.
5. In the Image Window, click the color that you want to select on your image.
6. Repeat step 5 to select additional colors.
7. Enable the Preview button to examine the color mask before applying it to the image.

Tip

You can remove selected colors from the preview by disabling the X check box in the list of sampled colors.

When you are editing a precise area on your image, it is often useful to select adjacent pixels of a specific color. You can do this using the Magic Wand Mask tool.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask tools flyout and click the Magic Wand Mask tool.
2. Click the Normal mask mode button on the Property Bar.
3. Click the Normal tolerance button on the Property Bar.
4. Type a value in the Color Tolerance box on the Property Bar.
5. Click the color that you want to select in the Image Window.

Tip

To expand the area produced the first time you used the Magic Wand Mask tool, click Mask menu, Mode, Additive and click another color on the image.

Click here to learn more about masks.

Fine-tune any selection that you create in the Image Window by transforming the shape of the mask that surrounds it.

Select a topic:

Rotating a mask marquee

Skewing a mask marquee

Mirroring a mask marquee

Distorting a mask marquee

Applying perspective to a mask marquee

Scaling a mask marquee

Resizing a mask marquee

When you rotate a mask marquee on an image, the selected and masked areas are adjusted automatically.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click and drag to select a rectangular area on your image.
3. Open the Object/Mask Tools flyout, and click the Mask Transform tool.
4. Click inside the selection.
5. Drag a corner handle until you're satisfied with the marquee's rotation.
6. Double-click inside the selection to apply the rotation.

You can also skew or slant the position of a mask marquee on your image.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click and drag to select a rectangular area on your image.
3. Open the Object/Mask Tools flyout and click the Mask Transform tool.
4. Choose the Skew mode from the list box on the Property Bar.
5. Drag the skewing arrow at the top of the marquee to the right.
6. Double-click inside the selection to apply the transformation.

Note

Skewing arrows are two-headed center arrows on each side of the marquee's highlighting box. They move in either direction.

One way to duplicate selections that you make on your image is to mirror the mask marquee in the Image Window.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click and drag to select a rectangular area on your image.
3. Open the Object/Mask Tools flyout and click the Mask Transform tool.
4. Choose the Scale mode from the list box on the Property Bar.
5. Hold down CTRL and drag a center handle across the selection beyond the opposite center handle.
6. Double-click inside the selection to apply the transformation.

You can distort the shape of a selection by dragging the Distortion handles in the Image Window.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click and drag to select a rectangular area on your image.
3. Open the Object/Mask Tools flyout, and click the Mask Transform tool.
4. Click twice inside the selection.
5. Drag a Distortion handle to change the shape of the selection.
6. Double-click inside the selection to apply the distortion.

Add perspective to your selections by dragging the Perspective handles in the Image Window.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click a Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click and drag to select a rectangular area on your image.
3. Open the Object/Mask Tools flyout, and click the Mask Transform tool.
4. Click three times inside the selection.
5. Drag a Perspective handle to change the shape of the selection.
6. Double-click inside the selection to apply the transformation.

You can scale a selection on your image to alter its dimensions while maintaining its aspect ratio.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click and drag to select a rectangular area on your image.
3. Open the Object/Mask Tools flyout, and click the Mask Transform tool.
4. Choose the Scale mode on the Property Bar.
5. Drag a corner handle to resize the shape of the selection.
6. Double-click inside the selection to apply the transformation.

After you select an area on your image, you can resize the selection at any time.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Click and drag to select a rectangular area on your image.
3. Open the Object/Mask Tools flyout and click the Mask Transform tool.
4. Drag a center handle to resize one side of the rectangular selection.
5. Drag a corner handle to resize the selection proportionately.
6. Double-click inside the selection to apply the transformation.

Click here to learn more about masks.

After you select an area on an image, you can expand or reduce the selection by adjusting the size of the mask marquee. Use the Expand and Reduce commands in the Mask menu to increase or decrease the width of the selected area.

Use the Grow and Similar commands to expand or reduce the selection based on color tolerance.

Select a topic:

Expand the selected area on your image

Add adjacent pixels of the same color

Add pixels of the same color anywhere on your image

Reduce the selected area on your image

You can increase the size of a selection on your image using the Expand command.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Select a rectangular area on the image.
3. Click Mask menu, Shape, Expand.
4. In the Expand dialog box, type a value in the Width box.

The width of the mask marquee increases by the value that you type in the Expand dialog box.

You can also increase the size of a selection on your image by adding adjacent pixels of a similar color to the selection.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Magic Wand Mask tool.
2. Click the Normal tolerance button on the Property Bar:
3. Type a new tolerance value in the Hue, Saturation, or Brightness boxes beside the tolerance mode buttons.
4. Click the image with the Magic Wand Mask tool.
5. Click the Grow button on the Property Bar.

The Grow button is only available if you have selected an area on the image.

Like the Grow command, the Similar command uses the current color tolerance to expand a selection. However, the Similar command expands the selection throughout the image even if the image pixels are not adjacent to one another.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Magic Wand Mask tool.
2. Click the Normal tolerance mode button on the Property Bar:
3. Type a new tolerance value in the Hue, Saturation, or Brightness boxes beside the tolerance mode buttons.
4. Click the image with the Magic Wand Mask tool.
5. Click the Grow button on the Property Bar.

The Grow button is only available if you have selected an area on the image.

You can reduce the size of a selection on your image using the Reduce command.

Click here to open a sample image.

1. Open the Mask Tools flyout and click the Rectangle Mask tool.
2. Select a rectangular area on the image.
3. Click Mask menu, Shape, Reduce.
4. In the Reduce dialog box, type a value in the Width box.

The width of the mask marquee decreases by the value that you type in the Reduce dialog box.

Click here to learn more about masks.

When you are satisfied with the mask that you've designed using the mask tools, you can save it. You can either save the mask temporarily in a mask channel or permanently, on disk.

Before you can complete the following tasks, you must select an area on your image.

Select a topic:

Save the mask in a mask channel

Save the mask to disk

If you are editing complex images, it is sometimes convenient to access multiple masks at once. Although only one mask can be displayed on an image at a time, you can store your masks in mask channels for use later on.

1. Click Mask menu, Save, Save As Channel.
2. Type a name for the mask in the As box in the Save Mask As Channel dialog box.
3. Click OK.

If you want to use a mask on different images, you must save it to disk. After it is saved, you can load the mask at any time.

1. Click Mask menu, Save, Save To Disk.
2. In the Save A Mask To Disk dialog box, choose a file type from the Save As Type list box.
3. Choose the drive where you want to save the mask from the Save In box.
4. Double-click the folder where you want to save the mask.
5. Type a name for the file in the File Name box.
6. Click Save.

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