Redesigned Rectangle, Ellipse, and Pen tools (beta)

Premiere (beta) masking tools bring greater precision and efficiency to your editing workflow. The redesigned Rectangle, Ellipse, and Pen mask tools fundamentally change how you create and manipulate masks in Premiere (beta). These tools now offer enhanced control over shape parameters, more intuitive drawing behavior, and better integration with the Effect Controls panel. Whether you're isolating subjects for color correction, creating selective blur effects, or building complex animated reveals, these improvements make mask creation more predictable and precise.

Work with enhanced masking tools

The Rectangle and Ellipse tools include dedicated controls for corner radius, allowing you to create rounded rectangles and adjust corner smoothness without additional effects or workarounds. You can define specific height and width values numerically, making it easier to create masks with precise dimensions for consistent compositions.

Draw precise masks with the Pen tool

The redesigned Pen Tool provides greater precision when drawing freeform masks. You can now draw straight lines with perfect 0°, 45°, or 90° angles by holding Shift while clicking. This constraint system helps you maintain clean horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines without requiring manual adjustment afterward.

When creating curved paths, the Pen Tool offers better control over Bezier handles. You can add control points with handles at custom angles or constrain them to the standard 0°, 45°, and 90° intervals. This makes it easier to create smooth curves that align with your composition's geometry while maintaining the flexibility to draw organic shapes when needed.

The ability to rotate existing lines after drawing them provides additional refinement options. If you need to adjust a mask's angle after initial creation, you can modify line segments directly rather than redrawing the entire shape. This non-destructive approach saves time during iterative editing processes.

Use masking tools across your editing workflow

These tools work seamlessly with the Properties panel and Effect Controls panel, creating a unified interface for mask creation and adjustment. When you draw a mask using any of the shape tools, all parameters immediately appear in the Effect Controls panel where you can refine dimensions, position, rotation, and path properties numerically.

Practical applications

The enhanced precision of the redesigned tools particularly benefits editors working on projects requiring exact specifications. When creating lower-third graphics with consistent dimensions across multiple sequences, you can input specific height and width values to ensure uniformity. The corner radius controls let you match branded design systems that specify rounded corner measurements.

For documentary work requiring face blurring or identity protection, the improved tools' angle constraints help you draw masks more quickly around moving subjects. The ability to constrain lines to specific angles makes it easier to create clean geometric selections even when working at speed.

Color grading workflows benefit from the numerical precision available in the redesigned Rectangle and Ellipse tools. When applying selective color corrections to specific areas of the frame, such as brightening a subject's face or adjusting sky tones, you can create masks with repeatable dimensions that maintain consistency across similar shots.