Mask Experiments with Vector Objects

[jclements]

A Mask could be used to Subtract from the entire document. The effected objects maintain their current grouping, layers, etc., and don't have to broken apart or ungrouped.

Also, it seems a "blank" Mask Layer can be saved in the Mask Gallery of your template file. When you want to use/activate it, click on the Mask Layer in the Layer Gallery to make it the current layer and then draw on or paste shapes onto mask in displayed in the drawing window.

You might want to experiment. Perhaps there are some other "useful" undiscovered techniques to use a mask for.

[haakoo]

You can draw on the mask layer
But you can stil move the "gaps" by selecting its edge

[MarkMyWords]

A mask can also be used to clip, rather than just cut. All it really does is create a shape without line or fill and use that to apply clipview. This could be done before of course, but the mask is a little quicker than that, which can't be a bad thing.

[jclements]

Mark: yeh its a "clip-mask" in essence. The big advantage over the built in clipview is the clip object doesn't have to be placed under/behind the objects you wish to clip (which I really dislike) ... I always felt I was doing a "blind" operation.

NOTE: If you turn off the visibility of a layer, then all objects on that layer are ignored by the mask when the mask is deleted. Pretty cool.

[MarkMyWords]

It would be nice if it behaved like a real mask, like a kind of "live clipping" mode. By that I mean, the mask should have an option whereby all new objects drawn, while this option is active, will automatically be added to the clip group. This is how masks behave in bitmap programs, sort of.

[steve.ledger]

This is how masks behave in bitmap programs, sort of.

Yes this was always the danger in calling the feature a 'mask'..

Here's a quick reference to Masks from the X5 Help file.

Masks
A number of operations can take a mask to indicate which parts of a photo or drawing are to be operated on. The Content Aware photo scaling is one example where you can mark an area of a photo that is to be protected from the stretching operation.

Operations that can use a mask include;

• Content Aware photo scaling
• Cut / Copy / Delete operations
• Duplicate and Clone
• Clipview
• Combine Shapes (Arrange menu)

The mask is shown as a pink semi-transparent layer. You can draw shapes onto the mask to mark areas of interest - either to indicate an area you want to work on, or an area that is to be protected. You can use any of the drawing tools to operate on the mask layer. So for instance it's easy using the Freehand tool to draw around any part of a photo. All masks in Xtreme Pro are vector shapes and you can use the normal vector editing tool such as the Shape Editor to edit the shape outline.

Think of a mask like a transparent pink film overlaid on your drawing or photo. You can cut holes in the mask, or cut out shapes to overlay areas you want to protect.

Not all operations take account of the mask, for example you can use Photo Enhance on a photo and it will affect the whole photo. Similarly if you are applying a color fill or transparency to a shape, this will affect the whole shape as usual, irrespective of any mask. However using the mask system it's very quick to make a copy of only part of a shape and then adjust that copied part.

[Markku]

I find the new masking thing pretty extraordinary. I wonder what substances were they influenced by when they invented this sort of thing? No other competitor has this.

It is so out-of-this-world that it takes a while to come in terms with it.

Remains to be seen if Adobe or Corel will copy this feature.

[covoxer]

Please also note, that deleting (cutting) with a mask is mostly similar to Eraser tool.
It's main difference from simple use of the combine operations is that it influences all visible objects so you don't need to select them.

[kinetica]

I find the new masking thing pretty extraordinary. I wonder what substances were they influenced by when they invented this sort of thing?

I'm guessing they were influenced by the clipping masks that Illustrator and Photoshop have had for years. I'm not saying the two are necessarily identical, but "masks" is nothing new to those of us used to using them in other apps for years. In Photoshop if I have to mask off an area I hit QB, use the relevant brush to create the mask, hit QM and I have a selection ready to manipulate.

I'm very, very pleased to see this feature in X5.

[Markku]

Have used them both for 10 years to know that Illustrator's clipping mask works mainly the same way as Xara ClipView. Xara's mask feature looks similar to Photoshop's masking but works quite differently. What is noteworthy is that Xara is a vector application and is yet using a very similar tehcnique to that of PS's masking.

The name masking could be considered misleading to those familiar with Adobe apps so that gives one minus to this feature. But given that Xara's masking works with both bitmaps and vectors, and is so flexible to use once you learn it, I'd give it 2 plusses and one more plus for inventing the wheel again with successful results. I honestly think Xara shows here that are capable of true innovation.
Remember too that masking can be used to assist in Content-aware photo resizing, which shows they were thinking this feature a bit more deeper than what first meets the eye.