Page 334 - Xara Designer Pro X17

334 Photo Regions and Masks

The Photo Region and Mask tools

The Photo region and Mask drawing tools can be found on the Photo region and
Mask tool flyout on the main toolbar.

The region and mask tool flyout bar
The REGION PAINTER tool allows you to 'paint' over an area or object that you want
to select. Choose an appropriate nib size from the InfoBar and create a shape by
stroking over the object.
The MAGNETIC LASSO allows you to easily trace round objects in a photo to cut
them out. This mode is enabled by default on the MAGNETIC LASSO mode toggle
on the InfoBar. Disabling the mode lets you draw closed shapes around the areas
or objects you want to select in much the same way as you would a pencil. It has
a smoothing control and you can also hold down the 'Shift' key to erase your line
as you draw. The MAGNETIC LASSO (ON PAGE 362) is described in detail in Photo
Handling (on page 340).
The RECTANGLE REGION TOOL tool lets you drag a rectangular selection around an
area or object. You can modify your shape using the width and height settings on
the InfoBar.
The MASK PAINTER TOOL allows you to 'paint' a pink mask over an area or object
that you want to protect. Choose an appropriate nib size from the InfoBar and
create a mask shape by stroking over the object.
Use the SHOW MASK OR REGION button to toggle the mask or region on or off.
Turning off a mask/region in this way does not delete it, so you can get it back at
any time by turning it on again, but while turned off it won’t affect any
mask/region-aware operations.
The INVERT MASK OR REGION button inverts the masked area or selected region so
that everything but the selected or masked areas are selected or masked instead.
Use the CLEAR MASK OR REGION button to remove all the shapes on the mask
layer.
The INVERT and CLEAR functions also appear on the InfoBar.

On the InfoBar there is also a toggle for turning mask/region outlines on and off. This is
only normally useful when using these tools to edit regions inside Photo Groups. All it
does is turn off the outline, so this toggle is Not the same as the SHOW MASK OR REGION
button described above, which turns on/off the whole mask/region. See Photo Groups
(on page 341) for details.