Local: masks
Press ⌃5 for Local. Its one section, Masks, gives a place in the frame its own eight sliders: a gradient across a sky, an oval over a face, the subject on its own. The note under the section says it in one line: A mask scopes the tonal and colour sliders — pick one to edit inside it, or Global to leave it. A mask is a place, not an edit. The eight sliders under the mask list write inside it instead of across the whole frame; the Exposure through Vibrance sliders on the Tone and Colour tabs do not, as Adjusting inside a mask explains.
Starting a mask
The section opens with five rows, one per kind, each with a sentence saying what it is for and Add at the right. The whole row is the button.
| Row | What it is for | What pressing it does |
|---|---|---|
| Brush | Paint over the part of the frame the sliders should act on | Arms the brush; the row reads Painting |
| Linear gradient | A graduated filter — strongest at one edge, fading across the frame | Arms the gradient; the row reads Drawing |
| Radial | An oval falloff you place over the subject or a light | Arms the oval; the row reads Drawing |
| Subject | Separates the subject from the background, on device | Adds the mask at once — there is nothing to draw |
| Lasso | Draw a path around anything and scope the sliders to it | Arms the loop; the row reads Drawing, then Enter applies |
An armed row takes the orange accent and its sentence becomes what the canvas is waiting for. Press it again, or Esc, to put it down. Exactly one row is armed at a time.
Drawing on the canvas
While Brush, Linear gradient or Radial is armed, the bar under the photograph carries the kinds as chips — Linear, Radial, Brush, Subject and Person — and says what the tool is waiting for.
- Linear — drag across the frame. The effect is at full strength where you pressed and absent where you released, with a smooth transition between; the line is drawn with a filled handle at the full end and a hollow one at the absent end. Beyond either end the strength holds, so a gradient drawn across the middle still darkens all of the sky above it.
- Radial — drag out from the centre. The press is the oval's middle, the release its edge.
- Brush — paint over the part of the frame the sliders should act on. Size and Flow appear on the bar while the brush is armed; a flow below 100 means strokes build up as they overlap. Hold
⌥and the drag rubs out instead. A second stroke lands on the mask already selected, and each stroke is its own⌘Z. The painted area is drawn filled, because with a brush the painted area is the mask. - Subject — one press, no drag. If nothing is found as a subject, the mask reaches nothing rather than silently applying everywhere.
- Person — the same one press, over everyone found in the frame, as one mask. It is on the bar only.
Placing a gradient, an oval or a brush stroke writes it at once, so it exists for you to select, and it does not put the tool down: a second gradient can follow the first. A drag too short to describe a shape is refused in the bar rather than silently doing nothing.
The Lasso row
The Lasso row arms a freehand loop that scopes the sliders to what is inside it: drag it, then press ↩, or the row again, to turn it into a mask. Esc throws the draft away. The AI lasso on the top panel draws the same kind of loop for the opposite purpose, to take something out of the frame; see Spot clean, Find distractions and the AI lasso. A loop too small to enclose anything is refused with the reason in the bar. Applying a lasso mask puts the row down, so a second one needs the row pressed again.
While the Lasso row is armed, the bar under the photograph is the AI lasso's, not the mask bar. It has no kind chips, no Feather and no Invert, and before you draw it reads Drag a loop around something to clean it out. Ignore those last words: a loop applied from this row becomes a mask, and nothing is cleaned out. Once the frame carries AI lasso loops, the bar counts them (1 lasso path · filled at render) and offers Clear. That button removes the AI lasso's loops, not masks, so leave it alone here; if you press it, ⌘Z puts them back.
Feather and Invert
The bar under the photograph carries Feather and Invert for the selected mask, but only while Brush, Linear gradient or Radial is armed. With no row armed there is no mask bar, and with Lasso armed the bar is the AI lasso's: Feather and Invert are on neither.
Feather (0 to 100, starting at 50) is how wide the transition is. For a gradient it is how much of the press-to-release distance the transition occupies; for a radial, how far in from the edge the falloff starts; for a brush, how soft a stroke's edge is; for a Lasso mask, how far inside the loop the edge fades. A Subject or Person mask has its own edge and offers no Feather. Invert swaps what the mask reaches for what it does not, on a mask of any kind; the sky gradient becomes a foreground gradient without redrawing it.
To reach them for a mask you drew earlier, select it in the list, press Brush, Linear gradient or Radial, make the change, and press the row again or Esc to put the tool down. The mask stays selected throughout.
Once a mask is placed, it has a row of its own in the section, and the eight sliders and the range under the list belong to whichever one you select. See Adjusting inside a mask.