Ron Martinsen's Photography Blog: REVIEW: Topaz Labs Remask 5 Tutorial & Discount Coupon Code

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

REVIEW: Topaz Labs Remask 5 Tutorial & Discount Coupon Code

APPROVED EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT
Downloads of version 5 available after NOON Central Time on 8/25/15

Masking is a pain in the butt – period. While Refine Mask has improved a lot, the reality is that it still is tough to do complex refinements and get good results. In my opinion, no masking product has been easier to use than Remask so I was excited to get the chance to try out the latest version this past weekend when I was writing this review.

What’s New

Remask now runs stand alone which allows it to integrate with other products like Lightroom and more. To support this background replacement is necessary directly in the app so this new panel gets added so you can tweak your new background directly in Remask without having to use Photoshop.

Here’s a look at the responsive user-interface first introduced in version 4 now with stand-alone support:

Notice how the background replacement was done directly in the app with before on the bottom left, after on the bottom right and the mask shown above

Here’s a video tutorial where I do a sky replacement on the scene shown above using Photoshop to demonstrate reuse of the mask on multiple layers:

Here’s the before and after where I chose to use a cloudless sky to avoid taking away attention from the umbrella scene, but if I wanted a more exciting sky with better clouds I can easily do experiments in either the stand alone version or in Photoshop:

Sky replaced with whatever you choose with ease

The After version also features Autumn preset from Adjust with “process details independently” checked and it reuses the sky replacement mask to avoid applying the effect on the sky. I could have also chosen to create a mask to avoid applying it on the water or to isolate the water to give it a different color as well. The net result is an intentionally vibrant sunset postcard.

Even with 50 megapixel images from a Canon 5DsR, the plugin in Photoshop CC 2015 worked extremely fast.

Magic Brush

Remask’s strength over the competition has always been the Transparency Brush which allows you to click on a color you want to keep then click on a color you want to remove then paint over the area to quickly remove one color while keeping the other (which is how you do complex things like hair, wedding veils, etc…). This feature still works great and now has the option to turn the intelligent Magic Brush (think Auto Mask) feature on and off as shown above.

Conclusion

This is by far the fastest and easiest to use version of ReMask yet. I really love what they’ve done to improve the UI performance and ease of use that gives it a world class polished looked. Existing users will enjoy the upgrade whereas people who have passed on it in the past should give it another try to see how much it has improved! Yes, masking sucks but it doesn’t get any easier than this!

Where to order

Click here and use the coupon code RONMART to save 15% off ANY Topaz Labs product or the entire collection, and for a limited time until September 11 2015 you can use the coupon code GETREMASKS to to get $20 off Remask 5. Here’s how you enter the code in the shopping cart (prices and codes may changes so check my discount coupon code page if the code doesn’t work):

Disclosure

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