For all of you videographer/photographers out there using Photoshop, you’ve probably felt the frustration and tediousness that masking can bring. Don’t get me started on trying to mask fur. Though masking has improved over the years, it’s still pretty time-concuming. However, that might soon change.
Adobe’s been hinting at a future AI feature in Photoshop that will actually be able to identify and automatically mask subjects in your images. The feature is said to be called Select Subject and it’s suppose to make use Adobe’s AI, Sensei.
You can see Adobe giving a quick glimpse of the feature in a recently uploaded video:
Sensei can apparently detect various different subjects in a photo when you are in the “Select and Mask” menu. And it seems that all you have to do to activate Sensei is click anywhere on the picture; it will start identifying and selecting instantly. After that, you should be able to use all the familiar tools to change the background or edit the subject.
Adobe says that the feature should be available in the next version of Photoshop, which doesn’t have any specific release date yet.
It’s good to remember though that the Select Subject isn’t perfect and there will be some portions that will go unmasked, like more finer details like strands of hair. So while people like me may still run into some frustration when masking things like fur in Photoshop, the Select Subject tool looks like it could lend a much needed hand and it should only get better over time as its algorithm takes in more data.
