A Deeper Look At Mask AI In ON1 Photo RAW 2023
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Note: A pre-release version of Photo RAW 2023 is featured in this article The final product may be slightly different.
Working With Mask AI
When you open a photo in the Edit module, ON1 Photo RAW analyzes your image for its different elements and objects. These different regions become selectable things in Mask AI. Mask AI appears in several places in Photo RAW:
Effects filters - Mask AI is on the left side of the Add Filter popup, so you can build a mask and then add an effects filter only to the selected areas. The workflow is very similar to Super Select AI.
Local Adjustments - Click and hold the Add Adjustment option to access Mask AI. Again, choose the elements you want to adjust, then work the sliders to affect only those areas.
Masking Options - For existing Effects filters or Local Adjustments, the Mask AI options are accessible the Masking Options area. This works for Layers, too! In the Masking Options, you can also set the mode to Paint In or Paint Out to add or remove segments from the mask.
Working with Mask AI is straightforward. Choose the segments and subjects of your photo to work with and add your look.
Mask AI options are on the left side of the Add Filter popup in Effects.
Click and hold the Add Adjustment option to access Mask AI. Select the areas you want to affect.
Mask AI options are also selectable in the Masking Options area of a filter, adjustment, or layer.
Mask AI Powers AI Adaptive Presets
You can see where this is going, right? With AI-powered, object aware masks, you can built intelligent, adaptive presets. ON1 has supported masks in presets for al long time. Now, imagine a preset can recognize a person, or an animal, or mountains, or water, and so on. You build your look using Mask AI and the create an AI Adaptive Preset to reuse again and again on other photos. And … those other photos have different people or animals or mountains in them. The AI figures all that out and applies your look to the right spots.
My pre-release software does not have the AI Adaptive Presets feature yet. As soon as I have it, I’ll share more about how that works and how to build these ultra-powerful presets.
Mask AI works on Layers, too. In this example, I used a layer to selectively apply Tack Sharp AI to portions of an image and Mask AI made the masking work easy.
Example - Layers, Mask AI, And Selective Tack Sharp AI
In my prior article about Tack Sharp AI, I noted that Tack Sharp AI cannot be masked directly. Tack Sharp AI is part of the Develop module, and those adjustments are global. However, you can use Layers to selectively apply Tack Sharp AI to portions of your photo. And, Mask AI is there to help you.
I revisited my photo of the sheep, created a new layer, and applied Tack Sharp AI to the top layer. Then, Mask AI made it easy to remove the sharpening from the tree line and sky. A handful of clicks and I was done.
Conclusion
Mask AI provides another method to quickly build a mask for your effects and adjustments, or to revisit existing adjustments and modify them. It works similarly to Super Select AI and gives you flexibility in your workflow.
Have fun!