Masks

Every adjustment in Macro Studio is masked — it only applies to the pixels in the currently-selected mask. The MASKS section at the top of the Develop sidebar lets you switch between four masks, refine them, and visualize what’s covered.

The four masks

Mask	Covers	Best for
Global	Every pixel	Overall exposure, white balance, color correction.
Subject	In-focus pixels that change across the stack (i.e. your in-focus macro subject)	Subject-only sharpening, texture, clarity, color emphasis.
Background	Pixels that stay defocused throughout the stack (the inverse of Subject)	Smoothing bokeh, killing background noise, cooling/warming the backdrop independently.
Brush	Whatever you paint by hand	Touch-ups, anything the auto-detected masks miss.

You can adjust each mask independently — every slider in the ADJUSTMENTS panel stores a separate value per mask. So you can warm the subject and cool the background, sharpen the subject and smooth the background, all on the same image.

Visualizing what’s masked

The eyeball icon to the right of the mask buttons toggles a magenta overlay that shows you exactly which pixels are covered by the current mask. Magenta = in the mask; clear = not in the mask.

The overlay is a debug-and-verify tool — it doesn’t affect the saved output. Toggle it on while refining a mask, toggle it off when you go back to actual editing.

Auto-detected masks: Subject and Background

When a stack finishes, Macro Studio analyzes the focus map to figure out which pixels were ever in focus (the subject) and which stayed defocused throughout (the background). Those two layers become the Subject and Background masks automatically.

You’ll see a Building mask… status label in the header toolbar for a few seconds while this completes. Once it’s ready, both buttons enable and you can click into them.

Refining a Subject or Background mask

The auto-detected masks are usually good, but not perfect — especially on subjects with thin features (antennae, hair), translucent regions (wings, leaves), or color-similar foreground/background.

To refine: with Subject or Background selected, click Refine Mask below the mask buttons. The center canvas switches to the brush editor, with the current mask loaded so you can paint additions and erasures.

In the brush editor:

Left-click and drag — paint into the mask (add by default; erase if Erase mode is active).
Shift + left-click — temporarily flip add/erase modes for that stroke. Lets you carve out a region without leaving Add mode.
Ctrl/Cmd + scroll — resize the brush. Scroll up to enlarge, down to shrink.
Right-click drag (or Alt + left-drag) — pan the canvas when zoomed in.
Scroll — zoom in/out centered on the cursor.
Pinch gesture (trackpad) — zoom.
Double-click — reset zoom to fit.

The brush cursor changes color to tell you which mode you’re in:

Green outline + black ring — Add mode (painting into the mask).
Red outline + black ring — Erase mode (carving out of the mask).

When you’re happy with the mask, click Done in the toolbar. The brush editor closes, you’re back in the main Develop view with the refined mask active, and all your existing slider settings still apply.

Click Cancel to discard the refinement and keep the original mask.

Brush mask — paint from scratch

The fourth mask, Brush, doesn’t come from any auto-detection. It’s a blank slate that you paint by hand — useful when neither Subject nor Background is the right shape for what you want to adjust.

Common uses:

Boost only one part of a subject (e.g. the eye of a beetle, the gills of a mushroom).
Darken a hotspot in the background that’s drawing the eye.
Apply a vignette by hand.

Click Brush in the MASKS panel, then click Open Brush below to enter the same brush editor. The mask starts empty; paint where you want adjustments to apply.

When you’re done, click Done. Your Brush mask is now active, and adjustments will only affect what you painted.

Switching between masks

You can move freely between masks — each one stores its own adjustment values. A common pattern:

Global — set overall exposure and white balance.
Subject — push texture, clarity, sharpness on the in-focus subject.
Background — smooth out bokeh, cool the color temperature, maybe add denoise.
Brush — paint over any spot that needs special attention.

Each mask click brings up the sliders for that mask. Move them, click another mask, sliders update to show that mask’s stored values. The image updates in real time.

Tips

Toggle the overlay often. It’s the fastest way to know whether your mask is the right shape for what you’re trying to do.
Refine before you over-correct. If pushing Subject Sharpness creates halos, the mask probably isn’t tight enough around the edges — refine the mask, don’t dial back the slider.
Brush is for the unusual stuff. Most edits work fine with Subject + Background + Global. Reach for Brush when those three don’t cover what you need.
You can iterate. Refining a mask doesn’t lock in anything — refine again, paint more, paint less, until it’s right.