The Magic Brush makes brushing areas of similar color fast and simple. Simply draw a line or a doodle on the area you wish the mask to cover and Capture One will fill the area automatically.
By default, the Magic Brush tool can be found in the Layers tool or in the Cursor Tools Menu using the shortcut B, the same as the regular Draw Mask Brush. Like other cursor tools with identical shortcuts, you can switch between them by using Shift + B. If you prefer, you can set a custom shortcut for the Magic Brush in the Keyboard Shortcut Preferences.
Hold down Alt/Option to toggle between brush and eraser (Brush, Magic Brush, AI Select).
1. Go to the Layers tool or Cursor Tools Menu.
2. Select the Magic Brush tool.
3. Right-click with the brush and you'll see the brush settings below.
Size - with this slider you can change the size of the brush.
Opacity - the slider shows the opacity of the mask the brush creates.
Tolerance - shows the range of colors the mask will cover. A low Tolerance will restrict the mask to similar colors, while a high Tolerance will pick up a wider range of colors when creating the mask.
Refine Edge - shows the refinement of the edge of the mask that will be created. A low Refine Edge value will result in a hard, defined edge, while a higher Refine Edge value will create a mask with a softer fall-off into the surroundings. The edge refinement happens per stroke on the mask area it creates. If you wish to refine the whole mask even further, you can do this by right-clicking the Layer and clicking Refine Mask.
Sample Entire Photo - determines if the mask will be restricted by edges. If enabled, the mask will cover all areas of the color that is being brushed on, regardless of whether the areas are connected (continuous) or not.
Resizing and changing parameters of the Magic Brush
Use similar shortcut actions as the regular Adjustment Brush:
Mac
Size: Ctrl + Opt + left-click and horizontal drag (right/left)
Tolerance: Ctrl + Opt + left-click and vertical drag (up/down)
Opacity: Shift + Ctrl + Opt + left-click and horizontal drag (right/left)
Refine Edge: Shift + Ctrl + Opt + left-click and vertical drag (up/down)
Windows
Size: Alt + right-click and horizontal drag (right/left)
Tolerance: Alt + right-click and vertical drag (up/down)
Opacity: Shift + right-click and horizontal drag (right/left)
Refine Edge: Shift + right-click and vertical drag (up/down)
Please note that any adjustments you make on Layers will only show if mask visibility is set to the option Only Display Mask When Drawing or Never Display Mask (or the shortcut M). If you have selected Always Display Mask, the Layer will show the mask overlay instead. The regular Eraser can be used to remove unwanted parts of the mask.
NOTE: Mask Visibility icon has been moved from the Layers tool to the Viewer Toolbar.
When applying brush strokes with the Magic Brush on an image, Capture One will automatically fill in the area of similar pixels to the ones covered by the stroke. This enables a fast way of masking areas and objects of similar colors (including gray scale).
The Magic Brush works additively, allowing you to continue making brush strokes on other areas of your image in order to get the mask you need.
IMPORTANT: The first stroke on an image with the Magic Brush will be a bit slower than the subsequent strokes, as Capture One will cache the RAW file to ensure a high-quality mask.
Comments
14 comments
Is there any way of undo last stroke or invert the magic brush to remove mask instead adding it?
Hi Vincent,
Thank you for your comment.
You can undo the last stroke just using cmd/ctrl + z.
Hi Maryna,
Is there any way to combine the effects of the magic brush and a radial/linear mask?
I am trying to isolate the background (easily done with magic brush) and then use a radial or linear mask to modify the background color (but not the foreground object) in a graduated way.
Thanks
Hola Maryna,
Is it possible to apply a style brush on a mask created with a magic brush?
How can I do it?
Thanks
Hi Antolín Agar,
Thanks for your comment.
You can use the style brush only by drawing a dot or something similar to have the layer created, then switching to the magic brush and paint in the rest of the mask on the same layer.
Thank you very much, it works perfectly.
I suggest you include this detail in the article.
Thanks
Hi Maryna,
Ever since the magic brush has been implemented, capture one crashes when I do too many 'touches' with it and have to reboot. Is this an identified glitch problem with the new magic brush development? Thanks,
Gil
Hi Gil,
Thank you for the comment.
I have forwarded your request to the Support Team. They will get back to you soon.
I'm having the same issue with crashes using Magic Brush. It's gotten very frustrating as there's no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes it craps out first time I try to use the magic brush, sometimes after 5 "clicks". I am allowing plenty of time between selections for each process to finish. After these crashes, I find I have lost anywhere from 1 to dozens of adjustments, not simply the single click with the magic brush that caused the crash.
Hi Victoria,
Thank you for the comment.
I have forwarded your request to the Support Team. They will get back to you soon.
Is there a "magic brush eraser" or something similar? Seems tedious to add with magic brush but erase manually?
Hi Ali,
Thank you for your feedback on Capture One - we appreciate the time you’ve taken to contribute towards the development of the software.
I have forwarded your suggestion for implementing a magic brush eraser to our Product Management team.
Hopefully, your feedback contributes towards a future version of Capture One.
"Calculating magic brush mask" takes forever in 80% of the cases for me, I usually have to kill C1 process from the task manager.
And it is on Ryzen 9 3900X.
Something is wrong with this tool.
Hi there,
Thank you for the comment.
I have forwarded your request to the Support Team. They will get back to you soon.
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