The Magic of the Magic Brush
Capture One’s Magic Brush is a tool to create complex masks, usually with just a few quick brushstrokes. It does this by analyzing both the colour and the luminance values of the brushed area to select anything similar. It sounds complex, but in practice, it’s fast and effortless.
About masks
The concept of masking can be intimidating at first, but as the name implies, a mask is simply a way of showing or hiding various portions of a visual element. In video or animation, for instance, a mask will be used to overlay titles over images, or to control how individual layers blend with one another.
In Capture One, masks are much simpler: they’re just a way of separating various parts of an image, so we can process them differently. And we use these constantly, whether we’re aware of it or not: every time we create a layer or use any of the local adjustment tools (draw, linear and radial gradients), we’re really creating a mask in the background. Here’s an example:
The Radial Gradient tool…it’s a mask!
The red area is where the mask is being applied (notice its opacity diminishes as we move away from the centre). Its visibility can be toggled on or off by using the M key, and additional options are also available under the Layers menu:
This is well worth exploring and adjusting to your own preferences. Quick side-note: I discovered the Display Selection Points option while writing this post and have since activated it. This essentially mimics the Lightroom model, but with each selection point representing an adjustment layer. Clicking a point selects the corresponding layer AND makes it possible to move it as well. FYI: the selection points are only visible when using a local adjustment tool. I think this has been around for a long time… I must’ve forgotten about it and never turned it on.
Parameters
Magic Brush options are different from the ones we’re accustomed to on the “normal” brush: that’s because they’re not just meant to control the drawing aspects of the brush, but also its selection abilities. Here’s what’s available:
My default settings…
Size: same as normal brush.
Opacity: same as normal brush.
Tolerance: defines how precisely the brush will sample colour or luminance values. Higher equals broader, lower equals tighter.
Refine Edge: this is essentially feathering—higher means softer, lower means harder. I tend to use higher values to make selections look more natural.
Sample Entire Photo: when this is checked, ALL similar values in the image will be selected. If it’s unchecked, the selection will be confined to contiguous areas only.
In practice, I tend to leave most of the options alone, except for 5 which obviously varies depending on the situation.
In action
This feature is much easier to understand when we see it in action, so here are two videos: the first one is from my initial look at C1 14.3, but I thought it should be included here as a more permanent reference; the second one is new, and it’s a real-time “session”, meant to show how the Magic Brush performs in a normal workflow.
You probably noticed I used two strokes to mask the skin in the second video. I did this because the first pass had missed a few areas, due to Tolerance being a bit too low. But in my experience so far, I’ve found it much faster to add brushstrokes rather than hitting Undo, fiddling with the tolerance slider, and starting over. And remember: any superfluous area can easily be erased (the skin layer includes a bit of grass that I normally would’ve removed).
Here’s one last example, from a recent series, where I used the Magic Brush to quickly select areas that were a little too bright (our daughter’s skin and the kitchen table). I then just dropped Brightness and Highlight—no intricate brushing or erasing was necessary.
A little too bright…
The mask…
The results…
Conclusion
Tools exist to make life easier, and yet they sometimes add unnecessary complexity. This isn’t the case here. I still use the gradient and linear masks, but much less than before—this is just faster. Same deal with the Luma mask: since the Magic Brush targets luminance values, it’ll often do the job just as well. I say often, but not always…all tools have their purpose.
But I’d suggest revisiting the luma post if you’re looking for targeting and processing ideas. The same principles will apply just as well.
