Object masking in Premiere

Learn how to use AI-powered Object Mask in Adobe Premiere to isolate and track subjects for effects and color corrections.

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

Isolate and track moving subjects in your video clips

Use Object Masking to auto‑isolate and track moving subjects without manual keyframes or plugins.

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

Object detection

In Premiere v26.5, Object detection now recognizes significantly more selectable objects per scene, including props, background elements, and layered subjects that previous versions couldn't identify. Mask boundaries are also more accurate on complex or irregular shapes, so you'll need fewer manual corrections after selection.

Object Mask quality modes

When creating an Object Mask, you can choose between two mask quality modes, Sharp and Smooth modes, to best suit your subject and workflow.

Sharp mode

Sharp mode produces binary masks with crisp, well-defined edges. This is the behavior Object Mask has always used, now labeled Sharp.

Sharp mode is best suited for:

• Objects with clear, distinct boundaries.
• Standard masking workflows where edge precision matters.

Smooth mode

Smooth mode produces masks with softer edges that better handle fine details. Use Smooth mode for:

• Hair, fur, or fabric textures.
• Subjects with intricate or delicate edges.
• Semi-transparent or translucent elements.
• Situations requiring natural-looking edge blending.

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 the Rectangle   tool
• Draw around with a Lasso   tool

The Rectangle and Lasso tools are highlighted to help with object selection, and the hover‑preview feature is turned on to enable quicker, more precise selections in the Program Monitor. Use the Rectangle or Lasso tool to select objects, and hover in the Program Monitor to show or hide the preview.

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.

Sharpness (Smooth mode edge refinement)

Use the Sharpness control to fine-tune how much of the mask's soft edge fringe is included, without switching modes or re-tracking. Raising sharpness clips away low-confidence background pixels, tightening ambiguous edges. Lowering it pulls in more of the low-confidence fringe, useful for recovering fine detail like flyaway hair.

Two adjustment methods are available in the Effect Controls panel:

• S-Curve (default): Adjust with Contrast and Midpoint sliders.
• Levels: Adjust with Input Black, Input White, and Gamma.

Mask expansion

Mask Expansion lets you shift a mask's boundary inward or outward after it's been created, using a single slider centered at 0.

• Negative values contract the mask, which is useful for cleaning up halo artifacts around the edges.
• Positive values expand the mask, which is useful for recovering subject pixels that the model missed at the boundary.

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.

Locating an offline mask

When you open a project containing an offline mask, Premiere prompts you with the following options:

• Select Locate to browse the mask folder (if you have access). This relocates the mask and makes it available.
• Select Restore all masks to have Premiere regenerate the offline masks directly from your source clip.
• Select Not now to open the project anyway, with offline masks marked as such.

Offline masks appear as Missing mask data in the Effects Control panel. You can locate or restore them directly from there by selecting the corresponding option.

If multiple masks are offline and their data is in the same folder, locating that folder will make them all available at once.

Restoring offline masks

If you don't have access to the original mask folder, you can restore eligible offline masks (masks created after v26.2) instead of rebuilding them from scratch. Premiere regenerates the mask by replaying the selection, correction, and tracking steps that originally created it.

• Restore shows an estimated time before starting, and a progress bar with mask count and time remaining while running.
• If you cancel a restore in progress, only masks that have fully completed are retained. Any mask still processing at the time of cancellation is discarded and remains offline.
• When the restore finishes, you'll see a summary.
• You can also restore a single offline mask from the Effect Controls panel, alongside the option to locate it.

Restore can take longer than expected for masks with many corrections or re-tracking passes, since each step is replayed. 

Mask quality feedback

To help improve Object Mask, you can submit quality feedback directly from the Effect Controls panel. Select the Provide Feedback icon next to any Object Mask entry, indicate whether the mask quality was satisfactory, and optionally provide additional details.