You might be an editing expert, but your skill level is not yet polished enough if you don't know about masking. The mask is a layer that hides or unhides a particular layer and reveals what's behind the layer. Many video editors and professionals use video masking to make their content look even better. Not only does it help you to make your content better, but it also helps you add various effects.
This article is a must-read for those who want to know about masking in video editing. Moreover, this article will provide all the necessary details about video masks and their importance. You can even learn how to mask video using a video editor. Masking will help you to make adjustments and customizations to your video content to your liking.
In this article
The best editor helps you reveal or hide particular portions of video footage.
Part 1: What is Masking as a Term in Video Editing?
The masking term refers to revealing or hiding particular portions of video footage. It is primarily done because the editor wants to make some adjustments or to apply effects. When a mask is applied to a specific video portion, the effects can only be applied to those specific areas. In this way, the trouble of customizing the whole video clip gets eliminated.
A mask works like a stencil or a mold that changes specific parts, and the rest remains unchanged. Video masks highlight particular parts of a video and isolate the others. This allows the editors to make changes and apply animations, effects, and more to these areas. All popular video editors provide video masking tools in different shapes.
Primarily, there are two main types of video masks available for video editing:
1. Layer Masks
It is a technique to mask video in which you want to control the visibility of different layers with the same composition. This particular layer helps you to reveal or hide what's behind that particular video layer. You can use a video mask to hide or change the background of your video. Moreover, this technique can be used to reveal a specific part of a video clip.
2. Effect Masks
The effect mask is used when there is a need to apply effects or to make changes in a video clip. This type of mask is used where an effect should be made visible to a specific portion of a video. It can help you adjust your foreground without making changes to the background. Video masks come in different shapes, and you can also change their opacity and size depending on your requirements.
Part 2: Why is Masking Important in Video Editing?
Video masking is an essential technique in video editing with so many advantages. You can specify a specific part in your video and make changes to that part only. The importance of masking will be discussed in this portion further to help you know more:
1. Selective Editing
Video mask helps you make changes, edits, adjustments, and even effects to a specific part of a video. All the other unspecified parts of your video will not change or affect them. This technique is helpful when you don't want to change the entire video frame.
2. Precise Control
Moreover, video masking allows you to take control of your edits. This will enable you to make precise edits and adjustments, making your content appear more professional. Additionally, you can take control of how much and to what extent you want to make changes.
3. Complex Visual Effects
You can mask videos to apply visual effects and animations to them. This way, you can also manually create a green screen using the masking technique. Not only this, you can change your video mask frame by frame to ensure the end result looks fantastic.
4. Blending and Grading
Masking helps you to select a target from your videos on which you can make changes and edits. You can choose the skin of a subject and make color corrections according to the need. Moreover, you can change a specific color in your video using the masking technique.
5. Object Removal
Sometimes, while shooting a video, we get an unwanted object we want to remove. You can eliminate such objects from your video by doing video masking. All you need is to select the object using the masking tool and isolate the other parts, and you're good to go.
6. Motion Tracking
You might have seen a person running in a video, and a text is revealing according to the movement. This is done using the motion tracking and masking technique. Once the tool tracks the movement, use video masking to reveal the text you desire.
Part 3: Wondershare Filmora and Masking: Understanding The Function
Wondershare Filmora is a top-rated video editing tool with a long list of features accessible to the user. This tool started its journey in 2015 as a video editor. However, in less than a decade, this tool is now one of the most popular video editors. Yes, it has the basic adjustment wheels and sliders, but that's not even the beginning. You can use its added advanced AI features for your videos.
Filmora even provides masking to help you take your video editing to new heights. This tool offers more than 8 different masking shapes and tools. Not only this, but you can also even import your masking tool from your system to make a selection. Once you've masked your subject or object in a video, you can edit or use its blending mode. Creating something special has now become easy with Filmora masking capabilities.
Part 4: How To Perform Perfected Masking with Wondershare Filmora?
In this portion, you will easily learn how to mask a video using Wondershare Filmora. Two different methods allow you to mask a video in Filmora; you will learn both.
Method 1: Using the Mask Tools
Step 1Install and Import Media in Filmora's Timeline
Install Wondershare Filmora from its official website and access the tool by double-tapping on its icon. Click "New Project" to navigate to the editing interface. From there, import your media and drag and drop it in the timeline.
Step 2Get Familiar with The Masking Panel
Click your media, and a window will reveal from the right corner of the screen. Locate the "Mask" option from the panel, and choose the shape you want to select for a specific portion of your video clip. You can select the masking options and try them to get familiar with the tools. After that, choose the masking tool that best serves your purpose.
Step 3Make Use of the Masking Tools
Select the portion of your video you want to use using a masking tool. You can invert the mask using the "Invert Mask" option from the same panel. Once you're done masking your video layer, the video clip behind it or in the previous track will be revealed.
Additionally, you can use the cursor on the preview window to adjust the same mask in further frames by positioning it. You can add keyframes to your mask and make other customizations like "Extend,” "Blur Strength,” "Opacity," and more.
Method 2: Using the Mask Effect
Now that you are familiar with the first masking option, it is time to learn the second one. Given below is how you can do Filmora masking from pre-installed effects:
Step 1Drop Your Media and Access The Effect
Drop your media file in the timeline and access the "Effects" tab. You will see a search bar in the following panel: search for Video Mask from there. Choose a video mask and drop it on top of your video clip from the options on the screen.
Step 2Make Adjustments
From the "Video Effect" panel, change "Width," "Height," and other adjustments accordingly. Once done, click "Export" and download your video to your device.
Conclusion
To conclude the discussion, masking is essential for every video editor or professional to learn. This article has given you its importance and the steps to use video masking techniques. Moreover, you've learned how Wondershare Filmora helps mask a video in two ways. You can use either one of them and add a mask to your video in a go.
