I am using Mask AI as a stand alone. I opened a photo and did a satisfactory mask. I saved it with a transparent background. So far, so good. However, when I try to open it in Photoshop CC it comes up with all the background – which was supposed to have been masked – still in place. There is only one layer, so I isn’t as if I could just use the mask layer. What am I doing wrong?
Also, when I try to open the saved, masked photo in Mask AI, it opens as a mask and I can’t even get to see it with a transparent background.
I hope someone can help as I am trying to work on a project.
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately it wasn’t the answer. I did save it as transparent and as a TIFF file. As bothersome as this is, it is also confusing why I can’t open the saved file in MASK AI in the last state it was saved in. In other words, it opens a file with the red mask and all I can do is to re-do the mask. Why does it do that? I am going in circles.
Phyllis, are you trying to save the mask or the result of the mask compute as a transparency? You won’t be able to open the saved file with a transparency in Mask AI as it will give a filled in background, you will need to use a pixel editor such as PS or Affinity.
If you want to reuse the TriMap, which is the last state of the mask, you can save the TriMap and then reopen the image and then open the TriMap using the File-> Load TriMap function.
Don, thanks for the explanation about the Trimask. That will be helpful in the future. What I was wanting to do was to use the result of the mask as a transparency so that I could blend it with another photo in Photoshop. It would be on its own layer, but I could then move it and transform it as needed to blend in. Does that explain what I am trying to do? What I am seeing when I open the saved photo in Photoshop looks like the photo that I opened in Mask AI before I masked it. I can tell, however, by the name of the photo that it was, in fact, masked in MASK AI.
Then, if you want to see the mask, simply duplicate the layer and select Layer-> Layer Mask-> Mask from Transparency and you will have an editable mask like this:
Don, I just did a rough and ready mask and saved it as a PNG file and this time it worked in Photoshop perfectly. So I am using the latest update of Photoshop CC – is that different from the version you were using with the photo of the Parrot? Because it certainly didn’t work with a TIFF file.
I think you are wonderful to spend so much time on this for me. Many thanks. I just can’t figure it out, and I keep thinking that I am doing something wrong.
