Masking

In Corel PHOTO-PAINT, you can isolate areas in an image that you want to edit, while protecting the remaining areas from change using masks. Masks, with their combination of editable and protected areas, let you modify images with precision.

In this section you’ll learn about

•distinguishing protected and editable areas

•defining editable areas

•defining editable areas using color information

•inverting and removing masks

•cutting out image areas

For information about clip masks, see “Using clip masks to change object transparency” in the Help.

Distinguishing protected and editable areas

You can use masks for advanced image editing. Masks function like a stencil placed over an image: protected areas prevent paint and effects from affecting the underlying image, whereas editable areas let paint and effects reach the image. When you define an editable area for an image, you also define a corresponding mask, or protected area, for the same image.

Mask overlay

By default, a mask overlay displays only over protected areas to make it easy to differentiate between protected and editable areas. The mask overlay is a red-tinted, transparent sheet. If you adjust the transparency of a mask in certain areas, the degree of red displayed by the mask overlay in those areas will vary accordingly.

You can hide the mask overlay.