Masking Software

Years ago you paid $850 for a Creo(Scitex) masking software. Now you can get AutoMask, Ultimatte Knockout, Cinematte, or Extensis Mask Pro for half that over priced Creo(Scitex) product. But how do these products improve over what Adobe Photoshop version 5.5 through & and CS now offer?

That’s what we are curious about also, since we constantly have to mask objects in our digital images. Unfortunately we have so much software that it is hard to keep up, so the reviews are still “upcoming.”

AutoMask 4.0, humansoftware.com

Cinematte, being a photographer I am especially interested in this. The Kaidan QTVR object rigs include blue and green knockout background colors. Cinematte is from Digital Dominion.

Extensis Mask Pro

Magic Mask from Chroma

MaskFX from autof/x

Ultimatte Knockout

Lots of software arrives for review, such as SilverFast from LaserSoft Imaging. They noticed our web site before we even contacted them to ask for review copies. Once they learned more about the FLAAR. test program and reviews they sent six different software packages for us to review.

ColorSynergy also happened to contact us before we even requested review copies. Within 48 hours of the initial contact by e-mail, FedEx had ColorSynergy color management software in route to our test studio in Germany. At other times of the year we test in our offices at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

In the picture, aftermath of testing DVD-RAM software sent by Software Architects. Problem is that this does not exist for Mac OS X that we know of. Mac OS X does not (so far) appear to allow working with DVD-RAM as a rewritable disk. It forces you to close and burn the disk, which destroys its potential for rewriting it. So Mac OS X has a few undesirable quirks that the evangelists don’t warn faithful users about.

Last Updated November 17 2004
Updated August 8, 1999; links added Jan 23, 2000

Design updated 16/07/2008