Object Masking in Premiere Pro (beta)

Masking in Premiere Pro (beta) allows you to isolate specific areas of your footage to apply effects, color corrections, or blur elements selectively. These tools are designed to streamline your editing workflow, enabling you to accomplish complex tasks without leaving your editing environment to use After Effects.

Types of masking tools

Premiere Pro (beta) offers several masking tools that provide different approaches to isolating areas of your footage:

All masking tools can now be accessed from the toolbar. Long-press on the tool group to find the other options.

• Object Mask Tool: Automatically identifies objects and people in your footage using AI, isolates them with a single click, and tracks them throughout the shot.  
• Ellipse Mask Tool: Creates oval or circular masks, perfect for isolating faces or circular objects.
• Rectangle Mask Tool: Creates four-sided polygons, ideal for screens, signs, or rectangular objects.
• Pen Mask Tool: Allows for free-form drawing of complex shapes with precise control using Bezier curves.

Each mask can be adjusted with controls for feathering, expansion, and opacity to create the exact effect you need. Traditional hand-drawn masks, such as the Ellipse Mask Tool, Rectangle Mask Tool, and Pen Mask Tool, use Bezier drawing, like other Adobe apps, such as After Effects and Illustrator. 

Object Mask

The Object Mask tool uses AI to automatically identify objects and people in your footage. With a single click, you can select and isolate an object, then track it throughout your shot. This is particularly useful for:

• Blurring faces for privacy protection
• Applying color corrections to specific objects
• Creating selective effects that follow moving subjects

Selecting an object or a person 

You can start selecting an object by selecting the Object Mask Tool from the toolbar and hovering over the Program Monitor. All the prominent objects that can be selected will be highlighted. You can select any of them by simply clicking on them. 

If an object you want isn't automatically highlighted, you can use the Rectangle or Lasso tool to roughly draw around it. The model will then detect the object within the drawn area and select it for you. 

There are three ways to select an object or a person for the Object Mask:

• Hover and click 
• Draw around with a Rectangle 
• Draw around with a Lasso 

Mask data storage

Object Mask relies on mask data that can get quite large in size. Storing this directly within the project file could significantly impact its size and performance. To ensure smooth operation and efficient storage, the mask data will be saved externally, in a dedicated folder located next to your project file. The folder will be named <Project Name> Masks for easy identification and management.

The corresponding mask folder must be present for the masks to be accessible within the project. When moving or sharing your project, please ensure you also move the mask folder along with the project file.

If the project’s mask folder cannot be found, the Object Masks will be marked as offline and will not be available for use. This will affect only Object Masks and will not impact other types of masks. 

Mask Quality Feedback

You can give feedback on the quality of the object selection they have created by selecting the Provide Feedback   icon next to each Object Mask in the Effect Controls panel. This will help us keep improving. You can answer if the quality of the mask was good or bad, and give us some reasons for the same. 

Mask Refinement 

You can add or subtract objects or portions of objects from the mask using the + and – buttons. The + and – modifiers can be temporarily toggled with the option or alt modifier key. In this way, you can quickly add and subtract from the Object Mask to correct it. The selection process is the same as the initial selection.

• To add or remove full objects that are highlighted, simply click on the object.
• To add or remove sections of the object or person, you can draw a rectangle or lasso around the desired area. The model will detect the section and apply the change accordingly.

Edit masks

To edit a mask that you have created, please select the mask from the Effect Controls panel and then edit it by adding or subtracting objects or portions of objects from the mask using the + and – buttons.

Shape masks

These are the traditional hand-drawn masks you are accustomed to. They use Bezier drawing like other Adobe apps, such as After Effects and Illustrator. 

Ellipse Mask Tool

The Ellipse Mask Tool creates ovals and circles. Hold Shift while dragging to create a perfect circle. By default, the Ellipse Mask Tool has a bounding box that allows you to scale, stretch, squash, and rotate. Since ellipses are overwhelmingly used in color grading faces, this is the right choice for the ellipse. Double-click on the Ellipse Mask Tool to exit bounding box mode and get to the individual points. You may adjust the point just like any other Bezier shape.

Rectangle Mask Tool

Drag to create an unconstrained rectangle. Hold Shift to create a perfect square. By default, rectangles are created not in bounding box mode. You can immediately start editing the individual points. Since rectangular objects in video are rarely perfectly square due to perspective, having immediate access to the point is most often the right choice. Double-click to enable bounding box mode.

Pen Mask Tool

The Pen Mask Tool can be used to create irregular shapes with as many points as you need. Click to create a control point.  Click and drag to create a curve. Click on the starting point again to close the shape. A complete mask must have at least three points. You can also use the Pen Mask Tool to add or remove control points from masks created with the other vector mask tools.

You can only use the Pen Mask Tool to create new masks, but the Pen Graphics Tool can also be used to edit mask points.

Bounding box

The new bounding box is a convenient way to scale and rotate any Vector mask. Double-click to enter or exit bounding box mode. You can drag the sides or the corners. Hold the shift modifier to constrain proportions.

Clip and frame adjustments

When adjusting a mask, you have the flexibility to choose the scope of your adjustment. Clip-level adjustments will change the position or size of the mask across the entire clip, while frame-level adjustments will only affect the current frame you are on, bringing key frames into play. This is particularly useful if you need to adjust a mask after tracking it.

Here are some examples of when to use each:

Color grading on a face:

Tracking by hand:

When adjusting the mask they will appear in the Transform section of the Effect Controls panel. In this way, the tracker data is separate from the Transform. Tracker and transform add together to create the final mask position.

Tracking

You can track the mask using the tracking controls in the Effect Controls panel under the specific mask.

Users have multiple options to track their masks.

• Track bi-directionally: Tracks the mask across the entire clip with one click. Tracking will start from your current frame, moving forward first, and then backward.
• Track Forward: Tracks the mask from the current frame to the end of the clip.
• Track Backward: Tracks the mask from the current frame to the beginning of the clip.
• Track one frame backward/forward: You can track one single frame either backward or forward.

Vector mask tracking

Vector mask tracking has been completely rebuilt from the ground up using advanced computer vision methods. This isn't an AI solution. 

Tracker options

You have the flexibility to choose what parameters of the moving object you need to consider while tracking. You can choose any combination of Position, Scale, Rotation, or Perspective. Choosing Perspective supersedes Position, Scale, and Rotation and disables them. Perspective tracking will account for Position, Scale, and Rotation on its own as part of that process.

• Position: Basic X, Y position.
• Scale: Accounts for object size.
• Rotation: Accounts for object rotation.
• Perspective: Accounts for 3D perspective shift, such as a sign or TV screen.

Unassigned masks

You can create one or more masks before applying an effect. This can be a useful way to work because the effect does not obscure your view while you create the mask. You can think of an unassigned mask as a mask that isn't performing a job yet. You can create multiple masks, track the movement of each, and composite them together with blend modes, all before applying an effect. When applying an effect, all the unassigned masks will be moved to the effect and used to constrain the effect.  

Constrain the color adjustment to the Lumetri Color effect: 

You may still apply a mask to an effect after it's created. While an effect is selected in the Effect Controls panel, any mask you create will be applied directly to the effect. 

Do the following to apply the mask directly to the effect:

Refining and combining masks

Object masks and vector masks have the same refinement controls.

It softens the edge of the mask. You can adjust this from the Effect Controls panel or, in the case of vector masks, from the UI in the Program Monitor.

It controls how transparent the mask is. This is useful to dial in the strength of the mask.

It can grow or shrink the mask. This is especially useful on Object Masks to help clean up the edge. Shrinking by a few pixels can often remove an unwanted fringe. 

It switches the mask from add to subtract. Think of it as switching from “keep this area” to “get rid of this area.”

It combines the masks together. Any number of Object Masks and Vector Masks can be combined to create complex masks. The Blend Mode of a mask operates on the full result of all the masks that came above it in the stack.  

Mask overlay

The mask overlay is a semitransparent shaded area that fills in the inside of the mask. This is a visual aid to help you judge where the mask is. There are six colors to choose from (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow) as well as black and white, which shows the alpha. Different colors are useful if the predominant color in the content you are masking is the same color as the overlay, and it’s hard to distinguish. Set the Overlay to None to turn off the overlay entirely if the overlay is obscuring your ability to judge the effect you are working.

Direct manipulation toggle

Use this tool to enter and exit direct manipulation mode. In other words, turn on and off the on-screen controls for things you can directly interact with in Program Monitor. This goes beyond masking. Select the chevron   icon to toggle open the list of each item that has direct manipulation controls. This is contextual to the currently selected clip.  

Complete tool guide

Learn about modifiers, and conditions for achieving masking actions.

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