Page 295 - Xara Web Designer Premium

Photo Regions and Masks 295

Photo Regions and Masks

In Xara Web Designer Premium the Mask tools are not presented on the main toolbar at
startup. If you want to use these tools you can find them in the Button Palette.

To open the Button Palette choose CONTROL BARS... from the WINDOW menu and scroll
through the list to the bottom. Then click the checkbox next to the Button Palette item.
(Or right-click on an empty area of any button bar and choose Button Palette from the
pop-up menu.)

If you want to use these tools regularly you can move them out of the Button Palette by
dragging them onto the toolbar. (Hold down Alt, then drag the button and drop it onto the
toolbar, over one of the existing icons).

Masks vs Photo Regions

A mask is used to protect part of a photo from a photo operation. For example when
using the CONTENT-AWARE SCALE/ZOOM (on page 397) tool to stretch or zoom a photo,
you often want to ‘protect’ part of the photo to stop it being distorted by the operation.
You use a mask to mark that area of protection.

Conversely the Photo Region tools are used to select areas of a photo upon which you
wish to perform a photo operation. This might involve a Photo enhance operation to
brighten or tweak the color of a particular area of a photo, or you might want to just
perform a simple crop, or cut and paste part of a photo.

Regions and masks are actually interchangeable and the difference between them is
only really one of presentation. A region identifies the part of a photo you want to operate
on, while a mask works the other way around and identifies part of an image you don’t
want to operate on (the masked area is protected from the operation). And in fact if you
have drawn a region using a region tool and you switch to the mask painter tool, the
region becomes a mask. And similarly if you start with a mask and switch to a region tool,
the mask becomes a region.

Masks have the advantage of being able to show levels of ‘softness’ whereas regions are
indicated only by a hard outline. So if, for example, you use the Feather Tool on a region,
you won’t see any change to the region as you apply the feathering. But when you use
that feathered region to enhance your photo, you’ll see that the enhanced area is indeed
feathered. If you use a mask instead, the pink fill of the mask shape will show the
feathering.