AAUG Reviews

By Tim Thomas, AAUG Member
Reviewed 1/06

Vertus Fluid Mask kicks butt. Well actually it creates very good masks, but it kicks other masking utilities right out of the game as far as I’m concerned.

Fluid Mask is a new plug-in for Photoshop that finally makes the process of removing backgrounds from complicated images if not a joy, at least much less painful.

Fluid Mask has a bunch of tricks up its sleeve to help define edges that defy definition, like hair, fur, and tree leaves or needles.

Launching from the filter menu in Photoshop takes you into Fluid Mask’s Photoshop-like interface. It looks a little different but least it’s not a jarring departure. I felt at home right away.

Fluid Mask analyzes the image then presents it in a window with three tabs at the top. Clicking on the first tab displays the Source image, the second tab is the Workspace where the masks are created, and the third tab is for viewing the results, or Output.

The Fluid Mask toolbar includes pencils and brushes for defining the areas to keep and the areas to delete, tools for drawing or forcing the transition area, a sponge for cleanup, region creation tools, an eraser, and an excellent preview selector. Dragging this selector instantly creates a test render of any portion of the image without exiting the workspace. This is perhaps my single favorite feature of Fluid Mask. Very nice touch.

When selected, each tools’ options are displayed in a separate window. Options include brush size and strength, as well as options to brush over previously masked areas of the image. There is also a Navigator window to help keep track of where you are when using high magnification. It works about like Photoshop’s Navigator window.

The selection tools are divided into Keep and Delete columns, and include the Exact Pencil, which selects only individual pixels. Next are the Local Brushes, which look for similar pixels in the immediate area. Finally are the Global Brushes, which attempt to find similar pixels over the whole image.

The Complex tool consists of a pencil, local brush, and global brush for defining transition areas. The Force Edge tool is a last-resort tool for putting an edge exactly where you want it.

For the simplest kind of image, with sharp edges and a contrasting solid-colored background for instance, mask making can be reduced to selecting either the keep or delete region, whichever is easiest. Then just click on the Create Cut-Out button. Fluid Mask will find the transition area and finish the process in one step.

For images with harder-to-define edges, Fluid Mask includes the ability to adjust the Image Information Layer (IIL). There’s some pretty good options here, which if used properly will increase the accuracy of the selection tools. Like most sophisticated software, it takes a little practice to get the most out of these settings.

Another cool feature is Fluid Mask’s Region Editor. Usually some parts of an image are easy to define, while others require more work. The Region Editor is used to select a specific portion of the image and sort the colors contained therein while assigning them to the keep, delete, or transition portions of the mask. you can use different settings for pixels within the region, while pixels outside the selected region are not changed. You can choose to view the separate red, blue, or green channels, or view the palettes by Hue, Saturation, or Lightness. You can use LAB color palettes for sorting pixels as well. This is pretty slick.

If all this is not so clear, go to Virtus’ website and view their tutorials. You can even download a free demo version of Fluid Mask.

And if you decide Fluid Mask is for you, Virtus is offering Fluid Mask for $199 until January 31. That’s $50 off the retail price.

Fluid Mask may not be perfect (I did run into a few odd glitches, but no deal-breakers), after all, it’s a version 1 product. But if it’s this good already, I expect that it can only get even better down the line. If you have images to mask, you can’t do better than Fluid Mask.