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I saw yingyang0 mention this Photoshop plugin in another thread so I googled it.  Looks like it could save me hours and hours of tedious isolating but it comes at quite a big price tag... over $200.  I'll give the free trial a run when I get home this evening but would love to hear anyone's experience with it.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks so much for your initial evaluation.  I can definitely understand your reasoning behind getting it.  Although I do have intermediate photoshop skills I have some pretty big time constraints at this point in my life so this could be a real time saver.  I honestly find it a bit sad that I utilize most of my vacation time from work slogging away at stock instead of on some tropical island so any extra hours I can get back will be a big plus. I would love to hear your continued evaluations as you become more familiar with it.  Thanks again.

Thanks for the input ale1969.  Actually, I already use clipping paths in my current work flow.  It definitely made a huge difference for me when I began using them... but I would love something quicker and easier if a method exists, hence my interest in Fluid Mask.  I imagine that each have their place based on complexity of the image and I will likely continue to use clipping paths for certain subjects.

You use the brush to select areas, no painting or drawing skills are required! How can someone offer a review before trying it?

I say this because I am the world's worst painter (maybe for the exception of jackson pollock).

I'm sorry, but that's where we disagree. It took me a long time to try the pen tool with the curves on the mushroom package and IS still rejected it, whereas a 1 minute process with the masker was accepted. Of course it takes more time with harder images but so far both vphoto and ale1969 haven't shown examples of where they used the pen tool for hair. Fluid mask has lots and lots of examples of it being used for hair.

What about kiwi's? 

For hairy things fluid mask can be useful just like that new selection tool CS3 has. But when you have to separate definite shapes with different light contrasts in them, like an orange with light from behind for example, the pen tool is imho the way to go.

It may actually be neither, on occasion I get this rejection from iS on objects I know are perfect isolations, but I learned that occasionally when saving from a Tiff to a jpeg it buggers up the isolation, the solution I have found is after saving the jpeg go back into it, select the white background with a zero threshold, if the edges are  a little bit rough I just increase the exposure by 0.7 and save again, that normally does the trick.

I've no idea why the tiff to jpeg save has this effect and I know it has happened to others as well.

Well that wasn't the problem here because tiff was not used.

Madelaide, I'll try adjusting that.

Thanks for the update.  That's disappointing to hear.  I'll still give it a try when I can.  Been painting our house all weekend so looks like I'll have to wait on that free trial.  Thanks again.

Hi,

there are few different ones of this, isn't it just like the extract? command in photoshop?

I struggled with isolations until recently, so I just didn't really bother much. Laurin and others always push learn  photography properly and you don't have problems with noise, isolation etc.  And as I progress I see that this is definetly true. 

Anyway there has been stuff I wanted to do recently on white. I spent time stuffing around with lights (household lights and flashes) and then with a horrible softbox (I know they have there uses and sometimes invaluable but I dont like them, too restrictive).  Anyway I gave up not getting the shots I wanted so went outside for a cigarette and sat depressed anyway then it hit me, it was a darkish overcast day, perfect diffused light with just about no shadows. So white table in the garden, still getting shutter spped around 1/100 and we were away.  Each shot that I have processed has taken a minute, quick levels and healing brush. no isolating just perfect, not a lot shots done yet, but all accepted

So now I have a lighting solution, and nice place to shoot and a heap of ideas, and of course I keep getting bright sunny days  *LOL*

Phil

OnOne Software has a program call maskpro that I am trying out right now.  It is suppose to be able to do those "difficult" isolations and (according to the intro video) it does.  I have yet to perfect it, but I haven't played around with it much.  You can download a trial version as a plugin for PS CS2 or above.  It cost $159.95.

Here is the link