EZ Mask

Digital Film Tools is an offshoot of a Los Angeles-based visual effects facility, and it has now brought this experience to bear on mask creation for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements to great effect.

The EZ Mask plug-in estimates the transparency value for every pixel in your image, based on a small sample of foreground and background pixels – areas you define at the outset by using the Paint Background and Paint Foreground brushes. Even when masking complex shapes, this process is quick and easy to implement, and produces high-quality masks every time, even for foregrounds with significant semi-transparent regions. In addition, foreground colours are estimated in semi-transparent areas to create seamless composites pretty much automatically.

EZ Mask works on both 8 and 16-bit images, and takes advantage of the speed realised by multi-processor or dual-core machines. We tested the plug-in on an iMac G5, and mask rendering times were noticeably slow – even a simple mask with no transparent areas took minutes to complete. However, there are complex algorithms at work here, and the results are very much worth waiting for.

EZ Mask’s closest competitor is Corel’s KnockOut 2, which is available for roughly half the price. However, KnockOut 2 is far less intuitive to use, and consistently good results are not possible unless you invest some time mastering its complex drawing methods and confusing menu options. KnockOut masks generally require touching up, but the masks created in EZ Mask are spot on every time.