Masking allows you to block an area of the clip and let whatever is "behind it" (on a higher track) show through. All you need to do is place your clip on track 2, and then place a white background above it on track 1 and the masked area will be white.

You can find solid color boards from this menu in the Media Library:



YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

I'm afraid I still can't figure this out. In trying to mask the video, presumably I must size the mask to the video, but I can't find any way to size a mask that is not itself in 4:3 aspect, but neither the image itself nor the black sides are in 4:30 aspect. What am I doing wrong?

Attached is a photo of my video with the black sides that I would like to turn white. Pulling the right side handle to the left doesn't just make the mask narrower, it shrinks the whole box. (There must be an easy answer to this, but I can't figure it out!)

Quote I'm afraid I still can't figure this out. In trying to mask the video, presumably I must size the mask to the video, but I can't find any way to size a mask that is not itself in 4:3 aspect, but neither the image itself nor the black sides are in 4:30 aspect. What am I doing wrong?

Attached is a photo of my video with the black sides that I would like to turn white. Pulling the right side handle to the left doesn't just make the mask narrower, it shrinks the whole box. (There must be an easy answer to this, but I can't figure it out!)

You just need to uncheck this box to freely resize the mask edges:



Once you've done that, place the video on track 2 and then your white color board (or anything else you would like as the background) on track 1



YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

I'm still lost. When I uncheck "maintain mask aspect ratio" and pull the right side handle to the left, it squeezes my video along with the black bands. I don't want a squeezed video; I just want to make the black bands white. There must be something really elementary that I am missing, but I don't see what it is.

Quote

You just need to uncheck this box to freely resize the mask edges:



Once you've done that, place the video on track 2 and then your white color board (or anything else you would like as the background) on track 1

Quote I'm still lost. When I uncheck "maintain mask aspect ratio" and pull the right side handle to the left, it squeezes my video along with the black bands. I don't want a squeezed video; I just want to make the black bands white. There must be something really elementary that I am missing, but I don't see what it is.

Sorry this has been a frustrating experience for you.

I have a couple of suggestions. First, and well worth your time, would be to watch a few tutorials on getting started with PowerDirector. Some tools and edits are very obvious and simple, while others may also simple but are not as easy to grasp the "how" or "why" of.

Any tutorial covering the basics should be helpful, even if it was made for a newer version than yours. Many tools have been around for a long time, but the Mask Designer, for example, has moved in the newer versions to be its own tool (rather than a tab in the PiP Designer in PD13).

Also, I've created a project for you with everything laid out as in my previous screenshot. You can download it from here, and then unzip it and double click on the Peter13 Mask.pds file to explore it in PD on your machine.

I hope both of these will help you to get more comfortable with how PD works, and also how to get it to do the things you want done.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote I'm afraid I still can't figure this out. In trying to mask the video, presumably I must size the mask to the video, but I can't find any way to size a mask that is not itself in 4:3 aspect, but neither the image itself nor the black sides are in 4:30 aspect. What am I doing wrong?

HI PETER i think ive got the same problem maybe ,, have a look at my other post , ive put the name of the you tube video on ,, hope its right ,, but yes it appears you have to untick the aspect ratio bit ,, like yoursel i dont want a squeezed clip regards hope it helps jim ,, what he doing in the vid is what i want to do in my clip .. i think your trying to do same ??

Please see my post on this exact topic on April 1, 2020. I give explict directions to do this.