Automatic masking software

[Shawn]

I have a client who is looking into the best options for regularly masking a few thousand images for a catalog we print. I looked at some of the automatic options in the past, and at least for the sample images I tried, we spent enough time cleaning up the results that it didn't seem to be much quicker than manually creating them in Photoshop. I'm curious if anyone out there has had any better results and could make any recommendations.

Thanks
Shawn

 

[Stephen Marsh]

It will obviously all depend on the original photography, lighting, background etc.


Stephen Marsh

 

[Puch]

I can only second Stephen's remark, it all depends on the original images. In my 20+ years of practice I couldn't find any surefire solutions to this problem. The only notable software I encountered was Ultimatte's Knockout (discontinued); there is a similar product now from Vertus called Fluid Mask Pro.

Nowadays we try to go back to the origin of the images, and instruct the photographers to make shots easier to manipulate afterwards. Still, there is a lot of work to be made in Photoshop by experienced operators. Drawing Paths is the way we mask 2000+ images in a month.