Money for Masking and the Pics for Free

The image used for the header of this article is not a CAD rendering. Neither is it a fragment of a 3D model wireframe. It is a detail from the image mask I had to produce today in order to adapt a stock image into usable element for a motion graphics project I am currently working on.

Masking, matting, rotoscoping, keying… you name it – not exactly the favorite task for most designers, yet a necessary one. But does it have to be? In this article I would like to propose a solution that could potentially free the artists from the labor of building alpha channels for their images, earn freelancers some money and help the big stock providers expand their offering.

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