Mask Invert shortfall

AlanR47

Senior Member Location: Norfolk UK Joined: Dec 08, 2017 05:01 Messages: 151 Offline

Solved by

Mar 03, 2018 13:16

Am playing with Masking and all seems as expected at basic level - select a mask and it can edited to be almost any distortion of the basic shape in any place on the frame, and as expected everything outside the shaped is masked.

However when you Invert the mask things go slightly silly - the shape now becomes the mask as does everything outside the bounding box. See PD manual page 314 where the white parts perfectly demonstrate what I am on about.

Within the box the behaviour is as documented - however it would be more sensible if the area outside the box were also to behave like the area within the box surrounding the shape.

My original aim was to mask according to the shape with everything outside it - unmasked. I was trying to obscure a car registration plate while leaving the rest of the frame clear. I used blur in the end as it was possible to select the region of the frame to blur. Fortunately the vehicle did not move within the frame so it was not necessary to get into motion tracking.

Is my use of masking inappropriate or do you agree this is an anomaly that needs CL attention? Or have a missed something ?

Alan.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 03. 2018 13:17

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Mar 03, 2018 13:44

Hi Alan -

I haven't yet tried to dig into the "issues" you raised earlier in your post, but if you're simply trying to mask/blur a numberplate you're using the wrong tool. Perhaps that's the reason it appears not to be working properly for you.

Mask Designer allows media in different tracks to be displayed together, so the viewer sees through one track into another (so to speak).

To blur out a number plate, you could use a keyframed blur effect or go to Motion Tracker & achieve much the same thing.

Cheers - Tony
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AlanR47

Senior Member Location: Norfolk UK Joined: Dec 08, 2017 05:01 Messages: 151 Offline

Mar 03, 2018 14:53

Quote Hi Alan -

I haven't yet tried to dig into the "issues" you raised earlier in your post, but if you're simply trying to mask/blur a numberplate you're using the wrong tool. Perhaps that's the reason it appears not to be working properly for you.

Mask Designer allows media in different tracks to be displayed together, so the viewer sees through one track into another (so to speak).

To blur out a number plate, you could use a keyframed blur effect or go to Motion Tracker & achieve much the same thing.

Cheers - Tony

Yeah - fair comment Tony - its what I did in the end - just because it worked and maybe mask was always going to be an overkill for what I wanted. Motion tracker is actually probably the best for my wish whether the target moves or not since it offers both mosaic and blur as your weapon.

I still think that invert should do just that for the whole of the frame though rather than just whats in the bounding box.

Thanks.
Alan.