Corel Photo-PAINT Exercises
Understanding Masks

Select the File menu / Open / acp_corel_paint_04_01.cpt

A mask is applied to an image during image editing to define protected and editable areas in the image. The area outside of a mask is protected and the mask prohibits paint and effects from being applied to that area. The area inside of a mask (selection) is editable, paint and effects will be applied to the underlying pixels of this area.

The Mask tools are used to define the mask.

Rectangle Mask tool - click and dragging defines an rectangular area.

Ellipse Mask tool - click and dragging defines an elliptical area.

Freehand Mask tool - defines an irregularly shaped area. Click once and click again to create a straight line. Click and drag to create a curve. Double click to finish the mask.

Lasso Mask tool - defines an irregularly shaped area by clicking on the color you want to protect, and then clicking to define the outline of the area.

Magnetic Mask tool - snaps the mask marquee to the edges of areas that contrast in color with their surroundings.

Magic Wand Mask tool - defines an editable area by the pixel you click and all adjacent pixels of a similar color.

Brush Mask tool - paint to define the editable area of any shape.

Mask Modes are used to define the mask tool mode of operation when you fine tune a mask.

Normal - lets you select one area of an image. If you click a second time, the first area goes away.

Additive - lets you expand the editable regions by selecting multiple areas in an image.

Subtractive - lets you reduce the editable regions by removing areas from a mask.

XOR - lets you select multiple areas in an image. If areas overlap, the overlapping regions are excluded from the editable area and added to the protected area.

1) Mask the main flower.

See image: In order to see the selected flower easier, I activated Mask Overlay in the Mask menu. I also changed the overlay color to green by selecting the Tools \ Options \ Display and then choosing green for Mask Tint. Why did I choose green? Choose the image menu \ Transform \ Invert. The contrasting color for the pink flower is green. I chose green because it contrasted with pink.

The tools I used to mask (select) the flower were the Freehand, Magic Wand and Brush Mask tools.

Freehand Mask tool - I used to define the boundary of the flower.

Magic Wand Mask tool - experiment with Tolerance settings on the Property bar, used to fill in areas of color when appropriate.

Brush Mask tool - experiment with the Nib Size and Feather settings on the Property bar , I used this tool to finish fine tuning the mask.

In the Objects docker, you will see that Object 1 has been created and is selected. If you cannot see the Objects docker, select the Window menu \ Dockers \ Objects.

1) In the Objects docker, select the Background.

2) Select the Adjust menu \ Grayscale.

Red slider  = -165

Hue = 7

Saturation = 58

Click OK

Have fun trying different tints and saturations.