Over the holidays, I was presented with several unique opportunities (ie SALES) to pick up various softwares for a deep discount.

It’s not a secret, Photoshop CC has a lot of cool features. I especially like all that automasking stuff I’ve seen people do with it. However, if you know me, I’m still a PS CS6 hold out. I tried CC back in 2019, but found it rather buggy, resource hoggish, and I hated that whole if you cancel now we still charge you BS. I think if their subscription model was more like Microsoft 365, I’d be happier to join up, but for now I’ll keep chugging along with CS6.

Of course, I’m always looking for excellent software and it’s a bonus if said software is a direct rival to Adobe. It’s even more of a bonus if you can pay a onetime fee!

One of the things I picked up over the last few months was from Topaz Labs. I have a friend who recommended their denoise to me a few years ago, but I didn’t buy the program because I was feeling meh. It required efforts I didn’t have to expend at the time to buy the program. I’m glad I waited though because Topaz’s programs seem to have gotten an AI upgrade.

I wanted to see what alternatives there were to Adobe CC and their automask, because masking things has always been hard! When the search returned Topaz Mask, I remembered Topaz Labs, and I decided to check their programs out.

I purchased Mask AI for a discounted rate in a special holiday bundle receiving three programs instead of a single program. I was thrilled to see the program worked as a plug-in to my Photoshop as well as a plug in to the other Topaz Labs software.

Bottom line? I think if you want an automasking AI that isn’t in CC, this is a good choice. I’ve used other “masking” plug ins that were complicated, overpriced, and stupid. I figured out how to use this program with no real problems following the built in video tutorial. The only issue I had was I could not get the program to give me a mask layer inside PS. This issue was solved when I found a thread stating you needed to add your mask to your layer BEFORE you open the Mask AI interface. Now, when I go into Mask AI, I return to PS with the mask I made.

This program is also great as a standalone if you are trying to simply cut out parts and pieces and save a file as a PNG to later use in PS.