Mask functionality request

Software RawTherapee
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Hi there everyone,
I am new to this forum but have been using rawtherapee for nearly a year now. I am loving the software for handling raw files. However i have a query, often whilst processing my images I use selective editing to mask the subject, however I am often frustrated by the lack of flexibility in only having elipse and rectangle masks.

Is there a way to create an irregular mask, or some sort of brush tool. Even being able to rotate an elpsoid mask would be very handy.

I have tried to find any information about this on rawpedia but to no avail. Any help is appreciated,
cheers, Sam

P.S. An example was when trying to edit milkyway photographs i had to create multiple elipsoid masks to cover the milky way due to the milky way stretching diagonaly across the frame. I could not mask the whole sky as there were areas very similar in hue to the milky way which i did not want to adjust. Thus a rotatable elipsoid mask would be very handy.

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Welcome to the forum, Sam.
The masks you are looking for are not available in RawTherapee, but there are other possibilities to get there:

In Local editing set a spot to the target, choose your tool, and switch on the preview delta E. Based on the tinted masking, move the scope-slider until only that area is coloured you want to apply the changes. Switch off the delta E and continue your edits.

For me, this function is doing this job very well.

hth
marter

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Hi there Marter,
Thanks for the feedback, I have been using this function and it is very powerfull. However it does struggle with subjects that contain many colours/shades or when the backround is of a similar colour.

I do continue to use the local editing feature nearly daily, and can survive without a more irregular mask shape. (i may just end up with more spots than i would like filing up my selective editing tab). But if an additional masking feature is added to RT in future I would be greatly appreciative.

Cheers, Sam

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Not trying to steer you away from RawTherapee but for what it’s worth, ART is a forked derivative of RT and has a brush mask tool.

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There is an excellent tutorial by Jason Polak showing how to refine the deltaE masks if you haven’t already seen it. https://youtu.be/m5X89YNEZbE?si=g18AVIDBpC-XP8n1

You can also complement the deltaE masks with additional
C(C), L(L), LC(H) masks in Selective Editing advanced mode if necessary. They are not super intuitive to start with but they are worth persevering with for really difficult cases.
https://rawpedia.pixls.us/local_adjustments/#using-a-simple-mask-to-improve-color-selection

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@jonathanBieler has submitted a pull request that enables rotation of the RT-Spot. This change has virtually no impact on DeltaE but alters transitions when the subjects being processed are oblique - which, I believe, corresponds exactly to the request discussed here.
And from my perspective (as well as that of other testers of this PR), everything is working correctly.

Rotation for local spots

A huge thank you to him.

Jacques

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Thanks for all the feedback!
I have downloaded ART and will give it a go (I like how the UI is similar to RT). Being able to rotate mask will definetely be handy (thanks @jonathanBieler ) and i am keen to give it a go.

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Is there a timeline as to when this will be merged into the Dev branch?

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@chaimav

I dont’know…

There are other pull requests to get through first…
The decision is a collective one and depends on the reviews for each PR… and there aren’t many of us… It will take at least several weeks.

:grinning:

Jacques

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