Vertus Fluid Mask 3.02 is an image masking package that works either as a Photoshop plug-in or as a standalone application. Fluid Mask 3.02 offers a very clean interface and a wide range of tools to help you mask out simple objects from simple backgrounds to complex objects on complex backgrounds. All of the tools that are included can help you mask out something as simple as an apple on a white background to a person with frizzy hair standing in front of a bush and even something a tricky as masking a glass with ice in it.

Fluid Mask works by first generating vector outlines of the various areas of color in your image, it then places the vector outlines around these areas and then using the keep or drop tools you can fill in the areas telling Fluid Mask what you want to keep and what you want to drop.

Two things that have impressed me is that you can also create masks by selecting colors from a popup color palette type setup in Fluid Mask, you can for example select all of the shades of blue, or red, etc. and this translates in to the keep or drop metaphor used by Fluid Mask. This tool also allows you to set the tones it shows you to coarse or fine detail, meaning you can have just a few colors to work with which means as you select colors you are selecting from a larger area of the image or you can go fine and see more individual colors so for example if you want to select all of the sky blue colors and not the navy blue colors you can do that. It really is very cool.

The other thing that impressed me was the control over the edge blending that you have. It is one thing to mask out an object but entirely another to have the edges of that masked out object look nice and natural when you place the object over another photo or even a solid color background. Fluid Mask not only does a stunning job of this automatically, it even lets you adjust this for those rare times that it didn't quite get it right.

As I mentioned the interface is clean and easy to work in Screen Shot. One nice feature is the help panel which as you select or move around in the program gives you help and tips on the tools and controls, this really cuts down on the need to have to jump in to the help system to figure out what a tool or control is all about.

The interface has four main areas. You have the tool box which has your keep and drop brushes, etc. The second area is the main work area where you will see your photo that you are currently working on. Then you have the palettes area with the navigator palette, edge finding palette, edge blending palette, tips palette, etc. and finally the top of the screen is the options bar where the controls for the tools are located. In many ways it is very similar to Photoshop. There are also three tabs one for seeing your source image, one for the workspace (where you do the actual masking) and one that shows you what the cut-out will look like.

If you have used previous versions of Fluid Mask you will appreciate the new features and enhancements found in version 3.05. These include:

New Features in V3

• Fully supports Windows XP and Windows Vista.
• Full support for Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Photoshop CS3
• Fluid Mask will also work in standalone mode (i.e. not as a plug-in) for image formats that accept transitions to transparency but only in  8 bit RGB color -- e.g. TIFF and PNG.
• Fluid Mask 3 is now 10% faster than version 2 for a single core machine. For dual core machines the processing time is cut by 33% and for a quad core machine it is an even faster 40%. Blending speed on hair blending is slightly.
• Version 3's workspace now fills the entire screen. No more floating windows that show the desktop through the application, this gives Fluid Mask 3 a more professional look and feel and it makes for a much less cluttered and confusing experience.
• Now each tool has its own separate tool settings on the options bar below the menu. The icon for the tool is conveniently displayed on the left hand side next to the Tool Option settings.
• The number of brushes has been increased; the eraser is not only an exact brush but can be a local as well as a global one.  The user can also brush a patch. Looking at brush behavior, users can now commence masking at start up before the initial image analysis has finished – great for the professional users that understands mask behavior for his/her images. Mask brush size may be adjusted mid-brush stroke – this works very well when hooked up to a pen based tablet like Wacom's pen tablets where pen pressure sensitivity determines brush size.
• Edge finding options have been improved, they spent a lot of time trying to make edge finding easy to use and understand. The Edge Contrast and Filter Out Texture settings are now hidden in an advance tab, they have also changed the names of the sliders to Edge Width Threshold and Number of Edges. 
• Edge blending options have been improved. Now the range settings for automatic edge blending and blending type are in the same place – before they were linked to brushes or performing a test render. 
• They enhanced the morphologically based edge decontamination blending and renamed it "Smart Blending" as it preserves edge artifacts and is a unique feature of Fluid Mask. Now it is possible to select only feather blending (where the feather width is set by the width of the blend mask) in those circumstances where edge information is so poor that "Smart" blending can't be used effectively. Or the user may opt to use the slider and move it to a position in between smart and feather blending where Fluid Mask decides on the level of edge contrast required for the blending. This may be performed either for the whole image like in version 2.0 or locally within a patch.
• Fluid Mask has completely new blending.
• Patches (called regions in version 2.0) have become more important to users workflow. Principally they should be used to solve problem areas. New features include: The ability to paint patches, like an exact brush. Right click on a patch to erase masks, auto-fill masks and perform a mini cut-out in the patch. Use patch properties to localize edge finding and edge blending. Use 2D color maps and histograms in the color workspace to make color based selections in patches. And, use patches to protect masks.
• Patch properties allows the user to perform local edge finding and local blending within a Patch.
• What used to be called the region editor in version 2.0 is now called color workspace. This has been completely redesigned from version 2.0 – now the color workspace includes a 2D color map for better selections and a "Photoshop – themed" histogram.
• New to version 3.0, the color sampler allows the user to sample a color in the image and see where the color lies in the color workspace – this selection can then be converted to a mask. This behavior is the opposite of normal color workspace behavior where colors are sampled in the color workspace and their analogue highlighted in the image.
• To improve user workflow, the user may save edge finding, edge blending and workspace resolution options from one image to the next checking "restore from last session" in workspace settings (viewed from the edit menu). This is useful for professional users working on a run of similar images (e.g. from a professional studio shoot).
• On loading large images the user may quit loading and choose to alter the workspace resolution manually and use "restore from last session" in the workspace settings. Also workspace resolution now has 1:16 ratio to improve speeds for very large images.
• The test render tool can now be used from all patches. Right click on the patch and choose test render patch.
• Roll over any part of the user interface and see the tip window inform the user of that part of the interface. Also included are the short-cut keys to aid faster results. The tips also guide the user to the relevant tutorial or xml help file.
• There is now an XML based help file which may be searched by sections or by keywords. Also included are video tutorials.
• As before Fluid Mask may be used with a Wacom tablet, now pen pressure is hooked up to brush size.

While Fluid Mask 3 is by far the most powerful masking plug-in and application currently available and it can certainly do a very good job thanks to its wide selection of tools and controls. It can depending on the complexity of the image and the object and the background take longer to mask out your subject. However, there are two things that are important to keep in mind in this regard. First, the more you use Fluid Mask 3 the faster you will get. This is not a one or two control plug-in, this is like a full fledge application inside of Photoshop. It is powerful and gives the user lots of control and lots of different ways of doing things. You need to take the time to learn how to use Fluid Mask 3 and then it will become a much faster process. Second even with it taking more time it creates superior masking results. The edges that it creates blend so perfectly with anything you place behind the object you masked out that the extra time it takes is well worth it.

There is actually a third thing to keep in mind and that is Fluid Mask 3 gives you the tools to mask out things that you can't mask out in Photoshop alone. Things like a drinking glass with ice in it, bubbles, clouds, smoke, fog, etc. It really is the most powerful masking package I have seen and is definitely worth taking the time to learn and use.

I do have a few complaints. First the online help isn't all that great. I would really like to see an in-depth and thorough user's guide in PDF format. I am just not a fan of the online help systems even though it enables them to keep it up to date easier. I just don't find them user friendly and their general layout is unappealing. While the help palette inside of the plug-in is nice for refreshing your memory on what the various tools do it is not a substitute for a full well done user's manual.

Second they offer some free tutorial videos on their site. However, the quality of these videos is poor in my opinion. In several of the videos where they I guess pieced together two separate video pieces the audio from piece one overlaps the audio from the other piece. It is very unprofessional and at least once I think the remainder of the subject being covered was cut off completely. Also, because the interface for Fluid Mask 3 in the videos is so small, you really can't see what they are clicking on. In some cases it doesn't look like the mouse cursor is moving at all even though the audio says otherwise.

They also offer free online classes for Fluid Mask. One for beginning user's and one for advanced. They do this by using the WebEx service for the visual part of the class and by having you call a toll-free phone number for the audio portion. When I tried to take one of these classes there were 3 students and after waiting 10 minutes past the posted start time of the class still no instructor. This like their video tutorials just isn't professional. To make matters worse, the time for the classes say one thing, but when you get in further it says something else and we aren't talking about time zone differences. The first time listing says 1pm eastern 10am pacific, then you click the "Click here to join free live training!" and it shows times of 5pm, 6pm 7pm. You have no idea what is going on.

Now I do need to be fair here, Vertus is a small company and have just recently opened an office in the United States and they have hired new staff and I have been assured that as quickly as possible they will be correcting and improving both the video tutorials and the online training courses. I also believe they are looking in to putting a user's guide together. We just need to be patient while they getting everything squared away.

If you want to mask in Photoshop and you want near perfect results Vertus Fluid Mask 3 is just the tool. Of all of the masking packages on the market Fluid Mask 3 is the most powerful and the most impressive. It is in this reviewers opinion worth every cent, worth every minute needed to learn it and should be in everyone's tool box.

Needs

• Intel Pentium 4 class CPU or later or AMD Athlon XP or later; Dual core recommended.
• Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista.
• 320MB of RAM (1GB recommended).
• 250MB of available hard-disk space.
• Product activation available via an Internet connection or e-mail.
• Photoshop CS2, CS3 (if Fluid Mask is installed as a plug-in).
• Installation as stand-alone application is possible.