Irregular Masks

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About Irregular Masks

Welcome to Irregular Masks.
This group is for people who like to mask their pictures in irregular shapes, rather than the traditional and boring regular shapes.

Group Rules
1. All pictures will be allowed providing the mask/crop is irregular and the picture otherwise complies with Flickr's rules.
2. Pictures with traditional masks/crops – that is square, rectangular, circular or symmetrically elliptical – will not be allowed. Other regular polygons will be allowed; and of course any irregular shape will be welcomed.
3. The edges of masks do not have to be straight; curves and even nice wavy lines are fine providing they are clearly a mask/crop rather than a graphics package border/picture frame.
4. You do not have to be an expert at anything to join; the only qualification is that any pictures you add to the group pool are irregularly masked. This can be done easily with most graphics packages. One simple way of irregularly masking a picture in Adobe Photoshop is given below; there are other ways and other graphics packages available. The secret is to experiment!
5. Original pictures do not have to have been made with a camera – scans and screen grabs are also fine in moderation – but they must have been created by the person posting them.
6. Members may post up to three pictures in any calendar day (ie. midnight to midnight in your time zone).
7. Members of the group are encouraged to comment on and critique each others’ work, but are asked to make their comments constructive. Comments such as “This is rubbish” will be frowned upon whereas “For me this would be improved by removing the white flower on the left hand edge” will be welcomed. Remember that what you write is only your opinion; other people may not share that opinion.
8. Discussion threads are also welcome providing they are at least vaguely relevant to the irregular masking of pictures.
9. The moderators retain the right to delete or lock (as appropriate) pictures, comments or discussion threads that are perceived to be abusive, redundant, self-promotional or which violate either the group or Flickr rules. However moderation will be undertaken with a light hand on the tiller wherever possible.
10. Above all, let’s have some fun!

One Method of Making an Irregular Crop Using Adobe Photoshop
1. You are advised to experiment on a picture which doesn’t matter until you have the hang of the method.
2. Open your picture in Photoshop and decide how you want to crop it.
3. Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L)
4. Starting at a suitable point create your crop shape as a series of straight lines, ending back at the starting point. (When the shape is closed the frame you’ve created will shimmer.)
5. To keep the contents inside the shape we now have to inverse the selection; go to Select | Inverse.
6. Now crop off the outside by doing Edit | Cut
7. This leaves the inside of the shape with a black (well whatever your selected background colour is) surround.
8. You can now trim back the unwanted surround as you wish – this has, of course, to be rectangular as PCs don’t store circular image files!.
9. Save your picture.