More Topaz Magic-Mask AI Released

by | Oct 26, 2019 | Uncategorized | 3 comments

Topaz Mask AI

As I stated in yesterday’s post, Topaz Labs seem to be the most innovative photo software company at the moment. They’ve restructured their software into two groups:

  • Topaz Studio, which contains all their ‘regular’ plugins and enhancement tools.
  • The AI range, their specialist tools. And now they’ve added AI Mask.

I’ve played with it for literally 10 minutes and am excited enough to write this quick mini-review.

What is Mask AI?

Topaz describe it this way:

Creating complex selections by hand and perfecting them almost always takes way longer than expected. Meet Topaz Mask AI. Mask AI allows you to create tricky masks in record time thanks to our intuitive machine learning technology and trimap technique.

Less user input for an extremely high-quality mask has always been a photographer’s dream, and now you can have it with Mask AI.

You use this software to make selections in your images for the purpose of removing something, such as the sky, to replace it with something else.

It’s easier to see than it is to describe so here’s a screen shot:

AI Mark Interface

AI Mark Interface

In this image I want to remove the sky. All I had to do was paint a blue line across the top of the building with the brush tool. Then I used the Green bucket tool to flood fill the area beneath the blue line. The sky was already red. I then clicked the Compute Mask button and less than a minute later I had removed the sky. So easy. I can adjust the results if they are not optimal until the effect is complete.

Once done I can save my image for further processing.

Topaz says that if the main object in the scene is readily identifiable, AI Mask can automatically mask it for you. I haven’t tested this, but it sounds good to me.Affinity Photo Compatible

AI Mask comes with a Photoshop compatible plugin. That’s a necessary feature as you still have work to do after you finish masking. I installed the plugin to Affinity Photo, and it worked perfectly. Fantastic.

Results and Conclusion

Here’s a closeup of the output:

AI Mask Result

AI Mask Result

I’d say that was perfect. Could I have done it by hand? Maybe. But it would have taken hours whereas this took seconds…

What uses does this program have? I can think of some:

  • Sky removal/replacement. Skylum Luminar is about to upgraded to do that automatically, so it’s a hot feature right now.
  • Product shots. This will make it easy to remove the background and place the products in ideal settings. Even eBay images will benefit from this
  • Detailed selections, such as taking a person from one picture to paste into another.

I guess the only limit is your imagination.

AI Mask is on sale at the introductory price of $69.99. It’s a fine tool for anyone who needs it.

3 Comments

  1. John

    Andy, your post says that Masi AI is Affinity Photo compatible. Have you had success with it? for me, it works fine as a standalone and opens fine as a plugin to AF, but does not create a usable mask. Any ideas?

    Reply
    • AndyBell

      Hi John

      In Affinity I’ve managed to get it to produce a resulting image with the mask applied but not save a mask that you can edit further in Affinity.

      I don’t have Photoshop so I can’t compare if this behaviour is the same there.

      I tend to run all my Topaz tools standalone and work with the resulting images afterwards with Exposure X5 being the central hub in my workflow.

      Sorry, this probably doesn’t help you much…

      Reply
  2. John

    Andy, thanks for the quick reply! I’ve also migrated to Exposure x5, but sometimes need to open an image in Affinity Photo. I’ll keep playing around – the masks that I’ve been getting as a plugin to AP aren’t usable at all. But since you’re getting usable masks, I’ll work at it. Thanks again.

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. It's Black Friday! - Andy Bell Photography - […] love Topaz Labs’ products. I’ve reviewed Gigapixel AI, Mask AI and Sharpen AI and they are class leading. For…
  2. Topaz Labs 25% Off Sale - Andy Bell Photography - […] Mask AI […]
  3. Topaz Mask AI V1.21 Released - Andy Bell Photography - […] See my previous review. […]

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

Topaz Gigapixel AI 6 – Time to Face the Truth?

Topaz Gigapixel AI 6 – Time to Face the Truth?

Readers of this blog will know I am a big fan of Topaz Gigapixel AI. I have owned it since version 1 and I would not enlarge a photo without it. For previous reviews, see here and here. Recently, I received a phone call from someone who wanted to make a mural of one of [...]

Upgrading to Windows 10

Windows 10 Upgrade is Still Free. I recently upgraded one of my computers to Windows 10. I know, I'm a late adopter. But Windows 7 was working fine for me and I didn't feel inclined to update it without good reason. I had to update it to test the new DXO PhotoLab 3, which won't [...]

An aid for blogging

ProWritingAid - a tool for bloggers and writers I've been writing this blog for over a year now and it's a very different discipline to taking and editing photographs. I find it harder. Until yesterday, my method was to write the post and then use Yoast's features to check my writing. That worked for shorter posts [...]

Topaz Gigapixel AI Vs Canon EF x2 Extender

I have tested Topaz Gigapixel AI before and concluded that it is the best image resize software. I now wanted to give it quite a stern challenge. How would it fare going up against a  top-rated teleconverter such as the Canon EF 2x Extender, Mark 3? The extender Canon's 2x extended attaches to some of their [...]

Luminar 3 – With Libraries. First looks

Luminar 3 With Libraries was released recently and I've been playing with it for a while. Here's my first impressions: The Good A reasonable image browser with a unique layout It keeps itself up to date after you have told it the folder(s) where your images are The RAW conversion is high quality, although it [...]

Affinity Photo – correction

In my previous reviews of this excellent software, I made a mistake regarding its focus stacking, saying that the individual layers in the stack cannot be edited. This is incorrect. See this Youtube video for details. To my mind Affinity is simply fantastic and it offers a real depth of features. But this mistake on [...]

Canon EOS R – Full Frame Mirrorless. Is it worth it?

I have used many APS-C mirrorless cameras, from the diminutive Canon EOS M100 to the medium sized Samsung NX500 to the SLR like Samsung NX1 and I have loved them all. But the appeal of 'full frame' cameras is strong. After all, full frame must mean better pictures, surely? Sadly, not. No camera will make [...]

A.I. Gigipixel 1.1 released.

I recently reviewed the initial release of A.I. Gigapixel and concluded it was a great Image Resize tool. Its main problems were the speed on low end graphics cards and it didn't support many low end graphics cards at all. This new release fixes the graphics card issue - the software will now run using your PC's CPU [...]

Instagram – what to do and what not to do…

My Instagram Page I use and love Instagram. My Instagram page is gaining new followers everyday. It's not as fast as I would like, but it is steady and the new users are sticking around. Like most of us, I've tried different strategies for building up my following and I'm going to share with you [...]

Hello photography world!

Hello Blogworld I thought it was time to start publishing some articles, reviews and photography news. So stay tuned - they'll be lots of good stuff here soon!

Don't miss the Black Friday deals from the best photo software vendors!

Try out their free trials.

DXO Photo Lab

DxO Photo Lab

The best RAW image converter, producing the highest possible quality results.

Topaz Photo AI

Topaz Photo AI

Three unbeatable AI post processing tools: Upscale, DeNoise, Sharpen. Nothing beats them.

Luminar NEO

Luminar Neo

A unique AI based RAW converter and image editor. Want creativity? Look no further.

Massive Black Friday savings announced!

Cookie Consent with Real Cookie Banner