In simple language, Image Mask can be described as a process of extracting certain part/object of an image, which may be the foreground or background - and supplant it with other background to match with the image theme. This term is widely used in digital photo editing and said to open herald a new outlook in image manipulation. Thus, today the commercial photographs commonly uses green screen as their background.
Specialty of Image Masking technique lies in its method of selecting an area with irregular, soft, blurred edges or multiple colors. The best example of such image is a multicolored head of flyaway hair. Editing such image with precision is in fact a designer’s nightmare. As he has to spend 90% of their time on such project while trying to perfect the edge. Intelligent edge detection is an important feature of Photoshop Image Masking as it can ease up the cutting-out process.
The mask selection tools are receptive to complex and blurred edges, and can preset the common complex background objects such as trees, hair or lattices. By masking designers can add a degree of transparency to blurred edges. The flexibility of such tool is that the selection tools allows editing of large sections of an image at one go. Image Masking technique thus can make the process of photo editing much easier and save a lot of time.
