# Quick Mask

Dialog Quick Mask

A Quick Mask is a Selection Mask intended to be used temporarily to paint a selection. Temporarily means that, unlike a normal selection mask, it will be deleted from the channel list after its transformation to selection. The selection tools sometimes show their limits when they have to be used for doing complex drawing selection, as progressive. In this case, using the Quick Mask is a good idea which can give very good results.

## Activating the Dialog

The Quick Mask can be activated in different ways:

- From the main menu: Select Toggle Quick Mask .

- By clicking the left-bottom button showed in red on the screenshot.

- By using the Shift Q shortcut.

## Creating a Quick Mask

To initialize a Quick Mask, click the bottom-left button in the image window. If a selection was active in your image, then its content appears unchanged while the border is covered with a translucent red color. If no selection was active then all the image is covered with a translucent red color. Another click on the bottom-left button will deactivate the quick mask.

From the channel dialog you can double click on the name or the thumbnail to edit the QMask attributes. Then you can change the Opacity and its filling color. At every moment you can hide the mask by clicking on the eye icon in front of the QMask.

The mask is coded in gray tones, so you must use white or gray to decrease the area limited by the mask and black to increase it. The area painted in light or dark gray will be transition areas for the selection like feathering. When your mask is ready, click again on the bottom-left button in the image window and the quick mask will be removed from the channel list and converted to a selection.

Quick mask's purpose is to paint a selection and its transitions with the paint tools without worrying about managing selection masks. It's a good way to isolate a subject in a picture because once the selection is made you only have to remove its content (or inverse if the subject is in the selection).

## Using Quick Mask with a gradient

Description

1. Screenshot of the image window with activated Quick Mask. As long as the Quick Mask is activated, all operations are done on it. A gradient from black (left) to white (right) has been applied to the mask.

2. The Quick Mask is now disabled. The selection occupies the right half part of the image (marching ants) because the limit of the selection is at the middle of the gradient.

3. A stroke is now added during the enabled selection. Weird! The gradient, although not visible, remains active all over the image, in selected and non selected areas!

After the Quick Mask Button is pressed, the command generates a temporary 8-bit (0-255) channel, on which the progressive selection work is stored. If a selection is already present the mask is initialized with the content of the selection. Once Quick Mask has been activated, the image is covered by a red semi-transparent veil. This one represents the non-selected pixels. Any paint tool can be used to create the selection on the Quick Mask. They should use only grayscale color, conforming the channel properties, white enabling to define the future selected place. The selection will be displayed as soon as the Quick Mask will be toggled but its temporary channel will not be available anymore.

To save in a channel the selection done with the Quick Mask select in the main menu Select Save to Channel .

## Usage

- Open an image or begin a new document.

- Activate the Quick Mask using the left-bottom button in the image window. If a selection is present the mask is initialized with the content of the selection.

- Choose a drawing tool and use it with grayscale colors on the Quick Mask.

- Deactivate the Quick Mask using the left-bottom button in the image window.