Recently, I attended both PMA in Las Vegas and Photoshop World in Orlando, where many vendors and manufacturers were wielding their goods for the public eye.  It can be quite overwhelming when faced with a vast array of new, exciting, and ever evolving-technological products.  I’m constantly seeking out products that will assist in making my workflow smoother and faster.  That’s why I was so interested in Vertus’ new version of their creative cut-out tool, Fluid Mask 3.

Fluid Mask 3 is a great plug-in tool, which uses the best cutting edge technology in the market, along with having a very quick masking process from beginning to end.  One thing that I truly loved is how easy the software is to learn and use.  Another is that it has precision edge quality.  And of course, I loved that it is compatible with both Windows and Macs, and that the price is only $239!

I decided to give it a try myself.  It was just as easy as the demonstration!  I have included step-by-step of my process, including screen shots of my workflow.

My trial run was with an image of my dad on his dock.  I like the image, but noticed that the sky was rather drab.  To improve the image, I decided to use Fluid Mask 3 to cut out the original dull sky and then drop in a bluer, more interesting sky.

Here is the original shot:


After opening it in Photoshop, I then went to my Filter menu, and selected Fluid Mask 3.  The application opened in a separate window.  I then simply had to choose what to keep (green), what to discard (red), and what to blend (blue).  The blending provides a way to work in between tricky areas, such as in tree lines and to keep the tip of the fishing pole.


Once I had marked everything appropriately, I then create the cut-out.  Even upon zooming in, it’s obvious that Fluid Mask 3 does an amazing job!

The next step is to save and apply.  The image then reloads into Photoshop.  I can then make any creative changes.  I used a brighter sky image to drop into the background.


After shuffling my layers, I was able to move the sky into the placement I felt most appropriate. 


Then, with a few color adjustments for the water and overall saturation, the final image is produced.  Viola!


Thanks, Fluid Mask 3!  Cut-outs using the pen tool can be so time consuming and irregular.  This process was incredibly easy and efficient. The whole process only took me about ten minutes, and that’s because I’m a newbie.  I’m sure that with practice I could speed it up even more.