Introduction to CutOut 9

Software manual
Content
1. New in CutOut 9............................................................................ 4

2. Album Mode .................................................................................. 6

3. Quick Introduction into Object Cropping ................................... 8

3.1 Inside/Outside Edge Matting ................................................. 10

3.2 Chromakey Matting ............................................................... 17

3.3 Stroke based Matting ............................................................. 21

4. Matting Mode .............................................................................. 27

4.1 Settings & Parameters ........................................................... 27

4.2 Settings & Parameters: Chromakey Matting ......................... 32

4.3 Curve window: Curvature of the mask .................................. 37

4.4 Matting-tools ......................................................................... 38

4.5 Cropping Intermediate Areas of an Object using the Edge Tool

..................................................................................................... 52

4.6 Additional Tips for cropping complex objects........................ 54

5. Digital Matting: Good to Know .................................................. 55

5.1 Matting technologies in general ............................................ 56

5.2 Chromakey Matting ............................................................... 57

5.3 Inside/Outside Edge Matting ................................................. 57

6. The Post-Matting Menu .............................................................. 60

6.1 Changing the Background Image ........................................... 62

6.2 Background Blur ..................................................................... 66

6.3 Duplicate to Layer .................................................................. 71

 6.4 Split Layer & Delete Background ........................................... 71
7. Edit images ................................................................................. 72

7.1 Editing Mode – Overview ....................................................... 73

7.2 Editing Mode – Detailed View................................................ 75

7.2.1 Matting ........................................................................... 75

7.2.2 Transform........................................................................ 76

7.2.3 Exposure ......................................................................... 79

7.2.4 Color ................................................................................ 83

7.2.5 Enhancement .................................................................. 84

7.2.6 Tip for the Edit Mode ...................................................... 90

7.2.7 Tools ................................................................................ 90

7.2.8 Layers .............................................................................. 92

7.2.9 Areas ............................................................................... 95

7.2.10 History ........................................................................... 95

8. Program Settings ....................................................................... 96
10. Opening and Saving Files........................................................ 98
Copyright ...................................................................................... 101
1. New in CutOut 9
CutOut 9 has introduced a couple of new additions to Digital Matting that
will drastically reduce the time spent on cropping images.

- New AI Algorithm: Further enhanced from its previous version,

this algorithm now belongs to a new class of more advanced AI
algorithms improved in quality and detail rendering. The higher
the image quality, the better the algorithm’s results. When en-
larging jpeg images, first select the „Unlock Jpegs“ option to en-
sure block artefacts aren’t enlarged along with your image. These
changes influence all additional enlargement options, e.g. printing
as well as batch processing.

- New RAW Formats: RAW Development has been enhanced once

more in order to support the newest camera models.

- Magnet Tool: This tool found in editing mode allows you to quick-
ly and easily select less complex objects without having to switch
to Matting Mode. It’s best suited for selecting objects with clearly
identifiable edges situated in front of simple backgrounds. (See
Chapter 7.2.7)

- Outline Selection Tool: Once you’ve applied the polygon tool, you
can now make further improvements to your cropped result with
the Outline Selection Tool. Simply designate whether your
cropped object shows a simple edge structure, or apply curvature
correction for more complex outlines. (See chapter 4.4)

- Increase Brightness: This function makes cropping objects manu-

ally (e.g. with the Polygon Tool) remarkably easier. Occasionally,
the edges of the object you wish to crop may be located in darker
 areas of the image. Without clear outlines of foreground and
background objects, this makes cropping rather difficult. This
function allows you to temporarily increase image brightness to
make cropping easier without permanently altering the image.
(See chapter 4.4)

- Edge Optimization: In CutOut 9, you can designate the number of

pixels to be contained in the specific edge region of the image
you’re editing. You can select from two, four or eight pixels, or
deactivate edge optimization when using the Polygon Tool, Paint
Tool or Rematting Tool. (See chapter 4.4).
2. Album Mode
After opening CutOut 9 the Album Mode will appear. This is where you can
manage your photos:

In section 1, select the folder containing the images you want to share or
edit. Use the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of this area to browse
your computer for image files.

The menu bar in section 2 gives you one-click access to the most important
functions of CutOut 9, including the three matting options.

Menu General functions and settings

View Opens the picture in full screen format

Matting Opens the selection window for the three matting options

Edit Opens edit mode (the post-matting)

You can change the size of the images displayed here by holding down the
CTRL key and scrolling the mouse wheel.

The album view of CutOut 9 is used to perform general functions such as

viewing, sorting, renaming, copying, pasting or adding EXIF information.
You can also access these functions by clicking on "Menu". By right-clicking
on the photo, the available functions appear in the context menu.

Using the icons at the top right of the screen, you can sort the images ac-
cording to various criteria and adjust the icon size:
3. Quick Introduction into Object Cropping
To crop an object and remove it from an image, first select the image from
album mode you wish to work with, locate the crop-symbol in the menu
above and choose a cropping method.

Which Cropping Method is the best one?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Choosing the most ap-
propriate cropping method is 100% dependent on the material you are
working with:

If you would like to crop an object not positioned against an evenly colored
or evenly defined backdrop, as most often the case, then we recommend
you choose Inside/Outside Edge Matting. With the help of the polygon
tool, the inside region (the object being cropped) as well as the outside
region (the background being cut out) can be selected, therefore enabling
the object to be cropped.
If you would like to crop an object that does possess an evenly colored
background (optimally blue or green) which is clearly discern-able from the
object, select the option Chromakey Matting. Well suited for use would be
portraits with monotone backgrounds or landscape shots against a clear
blue sky, for example, from which an object can be cropped.

The Stroke based Matting presents itself as an appropriate solution in cas-

es in which none of the two previously mentioned methods seem to yield
the best result, or when areas within the cropped object need to be quickly
and precisely removed. When this method is chosen, the image is divided
into an array of small puzzle pieces, or segments, all of which can be desig-
nated as either parts of the inside or outside region with just one mouse-
click. Segmented cropping takes into account brightness, colors and con-
tours to the same degree and yields a clear-cut result. Using these calcu-
lated segments when cropping can also be seen as the best editing method
for those looking to crop objects from images taken in front of evenly col-
ored backgrounds, not necessarily in a photo studio that is, such as items to
be sold on eBay shot while lying on the kitchen table. In most cases, the
lighting is not always the best to allow for an effective editing job by use of
Chromakey-Matting alone. Implementing stroke based matting in such a
situation will undoubtedly take your project the furthest. The effectiveness
of this method can especially be seen when cropping an object situated
against a white, grey or black backdrop. When working with rather large
images containing many segments, the calculation may take a little longer.
3.1 Inside/Outside Edge Matting

Method for multicolor backgrounds - or when colors from the back-

ground also repeat in the foreground object.

Inside/Outside Edge Matting is the right choice when it comes to cropping

Objects from images, which do not possess a strictly monotone back-
ground or are similar in color to the background itself. Select the Image you
wish to crop from album mode and choose the middle option from the
following window.

Now the selected image should be opened in the Inside/Outside Edge Mat-
ting Menu as follows:

Since the background coloration is in this case not only varied, but also
quite similar to that of the lion’s fur, Chromakey Matting would most likely
not deliver the best possible result. For this reason, it makes the most sense
to go about separating the object in the fore-ground from the background
by hand. To get started, locate the Menu bar on the right side and select
the polygon tool for the out-side selection from the upper left-hand corner.
Now, draw an outer-edge outline around the lion’s entire head.

This does not need to be done with pinpoint precision. Most important
when drawing the outline is making sure no point falls inside the object
itself.

Now choose the polygon tool for the inside selection:

Step-by-Step, click and drag the outline along the inside border of the li-
on—that is, where the edge of his meets the background. Once again, this
process does not need to be carried out 100% accurately. In order to be
able to work more precisely, however, you can use the zoom function lo-
cated on the left side of the menu bar:

An alternative option is simply scrolling with your mouse wheel to adjust

the zoom settings.

How do you take a step back?

If indeed you click on the wrong spot, one right click will enable you to un-
do and replace the last point made with the polygon tool.

Now finish up the outlining process so that your border spans the entirety
of the object from the inside. Important is once again that the inside border
does not contact the outside border area or the background itself. Finish up
your selection with a double-click.

Now you should see a green inside line and a blue outside line.

With one click of the Matting button on the right side of the menu, the
object is cropped according to the inside and outside edge se-lections made
in the previous step.

If you have checked the "Apply selection changes automatically" box above,
you can also click directly on "Apply".
The result looks quite promising at first glance. The background has been
removed and now appears transparent (gray/white grid-pattern):

If your result still doesn’t look absolutely perfect, you can improve the
cropped object by using an array of additional tools located in the In-
side/Outside Edge Matting Menu. These will be described in further detail
beginning in Chapter 3 Editing Cropping Results.

To create the displayed matting result as a separate layer in CutOut 9 and

then edit or save it, click Apply in the Inside/Outside Matting menu.

Following this, the Post Matting Menu will appear presenting you with an
array of options of how you can proceed with the cropped object. To have
your cropped object remain as its own layer, select the option Duplicate
Layer. Further explanations regarding the remaining Menu options can be
found in the chapter titled The Post Matting Menu.
Alternatively, you can also immediately insert a new background. To do
this, go to Change background.

The matting result can now be found in the drop-down tab on the right side
labeled Layers. In order to be able to recognize your efforts and view the
matting result, you have to first hide the original picture containing the
background. This can be done simply by clicking on the “eye symbol” locat-
ed next to the layer:
Now you have the option of either saving your work by clicking on the save
symbol in the upper region of the image, or you can keep working on the
image with the numerous effects and editing possibilities in CutOut 9.

Make sure that you have selected the correct layer! In this case you have
to select the layer with the matting result.

Note that you

should select
PNG as the
storage format
to preserve the
transparency
information of
the image.

You have now

saved the lion
on a transpar-
ent background
and can use it
in other pro-
grams as well.

Once again, quickly listed here are the most important steps in the selec-
tion of the inside and outside areas:

 Use the polygon tool in the selection of the inside and outside se-
lection.

 Click once to begin the selection.

 One right-click of the mouse removes the previous point.

 Moving and clicking of the mouse continues the selection.

 Double-clicking ends the outline selection

 Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

3.2 Chromakey Matting

Method used for cropping people or objects from images with mono-
tone blue or green backgrounds.

In order to crop objects with a monochrome green or blue background in

CutOut 9 using chromakey matting, select the desired image in album
mode and click on ChromaKey in the menu bar. The selected image should
now be opened in the Chromakey Matting menu as follows:

On the right side of the screen, you now have various matting setting op-
tions at your disposal that can be used to optimize the release result.

In order to crop the persons on the picture, i.e. to extract the green back-
ground, first click on the pipette symbol:
Then click on a spot in the image that corresponds to the background color,
in this case a green area. Using the pipette tool, gives CutOut 9 the infor-
mation which color corresponds to the background. CutOut 9 automatically
detects which areas need to be extracted from the image and which need
to be retained.

The result is displayed directly, whereby the distant background is dis-

played transparently (gray-white grid-pattern):

Since the green background in this picture stands out very clearly from the
object (the persons), the matting result is already quite optimal and hardly
needs any further improvement. However, one does not always have to
deal with such clearly distinguishable background colors, so that the mat-
ting result should often still be improved. In this case, please turn to the
chapter Chromakey Matting Optimization, which explains the other tools of
the Chromakey Matting menu.

To create the displayed matting result as a separate layer in CutOut 9 and

then edit or save it, click Apply in the Chromakey-Matting menu.
As a result, the Post-Matting Menu will appear presenting you with an array
of options on how you can proceed with the cropped object. To have your
cropped object remain as its own layer, please select the option Duplicate
Layer. Further explanations regarding the remaining Menu options can be
found in the chapter titled The Post Matting Menu.

The matting result is now available in the menu bar on the right in the Lay-
ers area. In order to recognize the matting result, however, you must hide
the layer of the original image that still contains the background. You can
do this by clicking on the "eye symbol" next to the layer:

Now you have the option of either saving your work by clicking on the save
symbol in the upper region of the image, or you can keep working on the
image with the numerous effects and editing possibilities CutOut 9 has to
offer. When proceeding to the editing stage, make sure to select the cor-
rect layer, in this case—the matting result.

Please keep in mind that your project should be saved in PNG format in
order to retain its transparency information.

Note: This chapter should serve as a simple introduction into object crop-
ping using Chromakey Matting. For a more detailed overview of functions
found in this menu, please turn to the chapter 4.2.
3.3 Stroke based Matting

Use this method to crop images that have a white, gray, or black back-
ground. This method is also used to cut out areas of an object that also
belong to the background.

First Application Example — Cropping Objects on White Surfaces

Select your image from Album Mode and click the option labeled “Cut Out”
in the menu bar.
 Section with the calculated segments

The image has now been segmented into separate sections according to
their brightness levels, edges and coloration. Now click on the white back-
ground to crop the object.
The object is now perfectly cropped. The selected region now shows a
green tint, the background blue. Now click on the Matting button to re-
move the background. Following this, click Apply and choose a new back-
ground for your object.

Second Application Example: Combing Inside/Outside Edge Matting with

the Segmentation Method to flawlessly remove sections from the Inside
region.

Select the Image you would like to work with and click the Cut Out button.

Now choose the Inside/Outside Matting method and select the inside and
outside edges as usual. The cropped result now looks like this:
We immediately see that the sky between hat and arm still has to be re-
moved. In addition, a small part of the arm was cut away and needs to be
brought back.

Now click on the segment calculation symbol.

In order to incorporate the sky region into the outside calculation, simply
designate this area with the blue segmentation. The green segment
selection should now be used to bring back the part of the elbow missing in
the cropped result. Clicking Execute followed by Apply will finalized your
edits.

The result speaks for itself!

4. Matting Mode
4.1 Settings & Parameters
The following settings and parameters are available in matting mode for
cropping using the stroke based matting and inside/ outside edge matting:

The Polygon tool was already explained in chapter 3.1. Here is a short
summary again: Start with the polygon tool for the outer selection (blue)
by clicking on your image. Moving and clicking continues the selection.
A right click removes the last point and a double click ends the selection.
Then use the Polygon tool for the inner selection . With the mouse
wheel and the lateral sliders you can adjust the view.

Lasso tool : The Lasso tool works similarly to the Polygon tool and is
used to freely select the background or foreground. You start the selection
by clicking. Keep the mouse button pressed and border the desired area.
When you release the mouse button the selection is automatically com-
pleted. With the mouse wheel and the lateral sliders you can adjust the
view.

In the example, the mouse button was released before the object was
completely surrounded. The tool automatically completed the selection
with the shortest distance between the start and end point:
 

Inject tool : You can add individual pixels to the inner or outer selec-
tion using the inject tool.

For example, select the inject tool for the outer selection (blue) after you
have defined the inner and outer selection. Then click on individual pixels in
the image that you do not think belong to the foreground object. In our
example image, we will try to remove the white streaks around the hair
strands:

Since a pixel is selected with each click,

you can work very precisely. When you
have finished your selection, click Apply again to get an updated matting
result.

The result in this case is the following:

Before inject tool After inject tool

It can be seen that the white veil around the worked hair strand has been
thinned. The more pixels you set, the stronger the result will be. The Inject
Tool for the Inner Selection works in the same way as the Inject Tool for the
Outer Selection: Click pixel by pixel on the areas of the image to be as-
signed to the inner selection and then click Apply again to see the result.

Note: Since the changes made by the inject tool are small details, you must
zoom in close enough to see the differences. This is the only way to per-
form an exact analysis.

The segmentation tool was already explained in chapter 3.3. Here is a short
summary again: After you have defined the inner and outer selection with
another tool, you can adjust the outer and inner area via segments. Areas
that are not clear whether they belong to the foreground or background
are displayed in red. Use the outer selection segmentation tool to click
the red areas that belong to the background and the inner selection seg-
mentation tool to click the areas that belong to the foreground.
Brush tool : You can also use
the brush tool to customize the exteri-
or and interior. After using another
tool to specify the inner and outer
selection, click the outer selection
brush tool (blue). By holding down the
mouse button and moving the mouse
over your image, you can adjust the
background. You can use the inner
selection brush tool (green) to assign
areas to the foreground:

At the upper edge you can set the

brush properties:

Contour tool: With the help of a

contour tool, you can simply
roughly trace the edges of the
inside and outside area and CutOut 9 automatically detects in which area
the separation should take place. You can then adjust the separation area.

You will find these contour tools among the well-known polygon tools for
the inner and outer selection. In contrast to the Poly-gon tool, with the
Contour tool you only have to roughly circumscribe the inner and outer
area of the object to be cut out and not click exactly, which saves a lot of
working time. When you select the Contour tool, you can define the brush
properties at the top of the screen before you start to draw the contours.

Then you first bypass the outer area of the object with the contour tool for
the outer selection (blue), then switch to the contour tool for the inner
selection (green) and bypass the inner area. The procedure is the same as
for the polygon, brush or lasso tool.
CutOut 9 recognizes by the roughly painted selection which areas belong to
the interior and which to the exterior. With the Contour tool, which is lo-
cated between the background and object selection, you can adjust the
intermediate area, called the unknown area:

This makes sense in places where it could be difficult to calculate when

assigning to indoor or outdoor areas. In this case the hair of the cheetah
would be such an area. After moving the contour-unkown tool over the
intermediate area, the intermediate area expands from the diameter of the
lower red arrow to that of the upper red arrow:

At first glance, the contour tool delivers a professional grade result just like
the polygon tool, and this in considerably less time.
Simply bypassing the edges with the help of the edge tool is always useful if
the object to be cut has particularly clear edges. If this is not the case, the
polygon tool may be more suitable.

4.2 Settings & Parameters: Chromakey Matting

If the chromakey matting result has flaws, you can use the following pa-
rameters to refine the result.

 Feather Brush
Adds individual pixels to the mask and ensures a softer transition
from the foreground to the background.

 Optimize Edge
Optimizes the mask around the edges of cropped object.

 Reduce Reflected Color

Sometimes the background reflects its colors into the foreground,
for example when a person wears white clothes and stands in
front of a blue background. This can result in the clothing being
 semi-transparent. With this option it is possible to reduce this ef-
fect.

But now to the practice: Let us take as an example the following picture,
which shows a landscape with a blue sky, but crossed by some white-grey
clouds, and from which you would like to remove the entire sky including
clouds.

The different functions of the Chromakey-Matting menu will be gone

through step by step with the help of this picture and finally it will be ex-
plained how the clouds can be removed:
If you apply chromakey matting to this image by clicking on an area of the
blue sky with the pipette tool as described in the Quick Start chapter, the
following result will be shown:

The blue areas of the sky were successfully removed, but the clouds were
not. These still shine through, because they are not blue, but white-grey.

Sensitivity

In the sensitivity bar, you can increase or decrease the sensitivity of the
selected color tone. In the following example, if you move the left slider
further to the left, the color range that is displayed transparently expands
by the displayed hue range. To remove the clouds from the image, it might
be helpful to move the left
slider to the left, as even
brighter blue tones will then
become transparent in the
image. Then click Apply to
see the result.

With closer examination, this

procedure seems to have yielded slight improvements:

Exclusion of lighter blue tones Inclusion of lighter blue tones

However, very bright blue tones are now transparent, but not the really
white cloud areas. However, the sensitivity adjustments are generally well
suited to include or exclude further color ranges of the color selected with
the pipette.

Feather Brush

With this slider you extend the border area of the transparent regions by 1
to 8 pixels. A high value will therefore include an extended area in the bor-
der area between foreground and background.

In our example image, this setting has the following effect:

Feather Brush Area Radius at 0 Pixels at 8 Pixels

This option can therefore be used reliably if the Chromakey tool has
skipped a small area that should have been transparent or if a softer transi-
tion between foreground and background is desired. In this case an optimi-
zation can be achieved by increasing the captured border pixels in the bor-
der area.

Optimize Edge
With this function CutOut 9 optimizes the transitional region between the
foreground and background according to the set amount of Applied to our
example, improvements are hard to see. The impact is only marginally visi-
ble:

Optimize Edge 0 Optimize Edge 5

The edges, i.e. the transitions from field to sky, have been slightly improved
and optimized on the right image to create a smoother transition. This ef-
fect increases the higher the pixel value is selected in the slider.

Reduce Reflected Colors

It may happen that the background reflects its color to the foreground. If
this is the case with your image, you can limit this effect with the Reduce
Reflected Colors slider. In our example image, a high value causes the al-
ready transparent clouds to reappear because the program assumes that
they were wrongly considered as background during the matting process.
So this is not helpful for our plan to remove the clouds. However, it is very
helpful for the street area of the image. In the original matting result, small
areas of the road were made transparent by mistake. If you now increase
the slider Reduce Reflected Colors to 50, the result is shown in the right
im-
age:

Reduce Reflected Colors 0 Reduce Reflected Colors 50

4.3 Curve window: Curvature of the mask

You can change the curvature of the cropping mask via the curve window.

By clicking on the curve, additional adjustment points can be added so that

the curve can be variably adjusted. This makes it possible to adjust the dis-
play strength of the foreground pix-
els and the background pixels as
required. The foreground pixels are
displayed on the right side of the
curve and the background pixels on
the left side. The vertical axes de-
termine the strength or transparen-
cy with which the respective pixel
area is displayed in the image. If a
curve point is moved downwards in
the vertical direction, the transparency of this pixel area increases.

4.4 Matting-tools
Below the settings and parameters and the curve window for the curvature
of the mask are the matting tools:

Display original image: By clicking on the heart symbol (or by holding

down the A button) you can display the original image before cropping.

Displaying your matting result in front of a new background

With the upper row of the Matting-tools you can display the cropping result
in front of different backgrounds. If you move the mouse over the image,
the original is displayed. If you do not move the mouse, a fade-out effect
automatically switches to the transparency view. In this way, you can quick-
ly compare which areas were included in the matting and which were not.
The first symbol shows a transparent background . The adjacent sym-
bols can be used to display the matting result against a black-and-white
background (symbol with the black-and-white tiles), and to display the
matting mask as a grayscale image (heart symbol): The foreground will
be white, the transparent area black, semitransparent pixels gray) or the
result will be displayed against a colored background (colored rectan-
gle).
Increase Brightness : This function lets you increase brightness levels
within your image temporarily to make cropping easier. No permanent
changes will be made to the original image. In the example below, the edg-
es of the tire in the foreground are relatively difficult to tell apart from the
background. When we brighten up the image, you’ll notice that the edges
are much more recognizable than before.

The matting tools in the second line are particularly interesting. With the
polygon tool you can select and remove (i.e. make transparent) any
areas in the result image or bring transparent areas back to the foreground
by matting. By pressing or not pressing the SHIFT key, the selected areas
are either brought back to the foreground ('+' symbol next to the polygon
tool) or areas in the foreground are displayed transparently ('-' symbol next
to the polygon tool). If you hold down the CTRL key when using the polygon
tool, you can also make a free selection and are not bound to the polygon.

This way you can also quickly remove the clouds from our example image.
Simply select the polygon tool and make sure that the '-' symbol appears
next to the tool, because we want to remove an object from the fore-
ground (make it transparent) and not the other way around:
With a double click the selection process is completed and the clouds dis-
appear at the same time:

In order to be able to work more precisely, you can magnify the section of
the image you are working on by increasing the zoom on your mouse-wheel
or on the zoom level next to the Matting Menu on the left.
You can also bring already transparent areas back into the foreground.
Make sure that the '+' symbol is displayed next to the polygon tool and
then make your selection:

New Edge Optimization: If you click on the Polygon Tool, the „Edge Optimi-
zation“ option will appear in the menu above. Here you can designate the
pixel density of the area you wish to optimize.
Here’s a comparison of the Edge Optimization options:

Original Image Image without Edge Optimization

2 Pixels 8 Pixels

Paint to modify tool : The paint to modify tool in the matting menu
works according to a similar principle, but using a brush instead of a poly-
gon selection. Select the icon and set the brush properties in the upper
menu bar:

New Edge Optimization: If you click on the Polygon Tool, the „Edge Optimi-
zation“ option will appear in the menu above. Here you can designate the
pixel density of the area you wish to optimize.
Here’s a comparison of the Edge Optimization options:

Original Image Image without Edge Optimization

2 Pixels 8 Pixels
In addition to the brush size, you can also set the softness and opacity. At a
Similar to the polygon tool, press the SHIFT key or not to either bring trans-

parent background back to the foreground or to make visible objects trans-

parent. To remove the clouds from our example image, we therefore press
the SHIFT key while painting so that the small '-' symbol appears next to the
pen tool and then paint over the clouds.

We set the opacity of the brush to 100, since the clouds should not become
semi-transparent, but should disappear completely.

By the way, if you want to bring transparent areas back into the fore-
ground, i.e. use the paint tool with a '+' symbol, you can check the Recover
original color checkbox next to the brush properties. Then the transparent
areas that you paint over will get their original color back.

Re-Matting Tool : The third option for assigning individual areas to the
foreground or background is re-matting. To do this, select the Yin-Yang
symbol from the matting-tool list. This tool allows you to select up to six
hues that appear in the background and also six hues that appear in the
foreground. This tool is particularly useful for rematting the edges of the
foreground object, i.e. the border between the object to be cut and the
background. After you have selected the tool, first click on a background or
foreground area in the image. If you move the mouse over the image, you
will see that in the foreground area the pipette symbol is displayed with an
'F' and in the background area with a 'B':

Once you have selected a background color and a foreground color, the
pipette tool switches to the brush tool. However, if you want to select more
than one color for the background, press and hold the 'SHIFT' key and then
click other foreground and background colors in the image (up to 6 shades
each). The tool will then switch to paint mode. First set the brush proper-
ties (size, softness and opacity) in the upper menu bar. The principle is as
follows:

If you paint with the brush over the picture, only the color tones that you
have defined as the foreground color remain, the rest becomes transpar-
ent. Similarly, the hues that you have selected as the background color
remain transparent, but the rest becomes visible again when you paint over
them. If you now paint over border areas between foreground and back-
ground object, the transition area can be optimized based on your selection
of foreground and background color. Right-click to reset the color selection.

In our example picture the re-matting-tool has the following effects:

After the simple matting by means of color selection there are some uncer-
tainties in the border area between background (sky) and foreground
(trees, meadow):
As you can see, some pixels in the transition area seem to be semi-
transparent. In order to assign these more clearly to the foreground or
background, we use the re-matting-tool to define the foreground and back-
ground colors in the border area:

Be sure to hold down the 'SHIFT' key if you are not finished with the color
selection.

After defining the foreground and background colors of the border area, if
you now move the paint to modify tool over this border area, you will see
the following result:
In this case the brush was moved from the left, i.e. from the right end of
the group of trees, to the right. You see the difference in the red ellipse
clearly in the left, already painted over border area and in the right, not yet
painted over area.

Obviously questionable, "blurred" areas could now be assigned to the fore-

ground or background to a large extent due to the exact color definition.

New Edge Optimization: If you click on the Polygon Tool, the „Edge Optimi-
zation“ option will appear in the menu above. Here you can designate the
pixel density of the area you wish to optimize.
Here’s a comparison of the Edge Optimization options:

Original Image Image without Edge Optimization

2 Pixels 8 Pixels

Desaturate border areas: You can use

the desaturation tool to desaturate
selected hue areas. This can be especial-
ly useful if the edge of the clipped ob-
ject contains the color of the back-
ground. Select the Desaturation tool
and click on a hue in the border area of the image that you want to desatu-
rate. Then set the brush properties in the upper menu bar and paint over
the image. By reducing the opacity in the brush properties, you can vary the
amount of saturation. Only the selected color range is desaturated, all
other colors are preserved.
The following result is shown in our example image:

Before Desaturation After Desaturation

You can see a less colourful transition between forest and sky. The colors of
the border area have been desaturated.

Similarly, you can apply this effect to other areas of the image. If, for exam-
ple, we want to desaturate the brownish grain on the field, the following
result will appear:

Feather Brush : With the help of the feather brush you soften individual
areas of the cropping mask and thus create a better transition. The effects
are often only visible when zooming in strongly. In the upper menu bar, set
the brush properties and then paint over the areas for which you want
softer transitions.

Outline Selection Tool : Once you’ve applied the polygon tool, you can
now make further improvements to your cropped result with the Outline
Selection Tool. Simply designate whether your cropped object shows a
simple edge structure or to apply curvature correction for more complex
outlines.

- Simple Outlines: „Simple“ means the edges do not contain holes,

strands of hair or similar more complex features. Once you’ve se-
lected this option, CutOut will optimize the selected region by
applying a special algorithm. Here’s a comparison:

 Simple Outlines

 Complex Outlines

Comparison 2:

Original CutOut 8 Pro CutOut 9

- Curvature Correction: This function applies a curve to further op-

timizes your mask of the image. Select areas will be reduced –
such as semitransparent edge regions – and sent to the fore-
ground or background depending on your curve settings.
 

Use the arrow icons to undo or repeat steps.

4.5 Cropping Intermediate Areas of an Object using the
Edge Tool
Often you are confronted with objects you that have elements of the back-
ground situated within them that need to be removed.

Typical examples are photos in which people have their hands situated on
their hips, or as in our example below, positioned on their heads or hats:

When cropping such an image using Inside/Outside Edge Matting, the out-
come becomes problematic due to the fact that the areas between the
arms, head and the hat are not removed, rather remain in the cropped
result.
With the new edge tool in CutOut 9 you can easily remove these regions by
outlining them individually after drawing the inside and outside outline
around the entire person:

The result of this edge definition speaks for itself:

Die problematischen Bereiche zwischen Armen, Kopf und Hut wurden sehr
schnell und erfolgreich entfernt.
4.6 Additional Tips for cropping complex objects

Close to the edge or farther out?

If the area has different colors or tex-

tures, try to select the areas as precisely
and close to the edge as possible. If the
subject is rather simple and explicit, a
rough selection is sufficient.

How to crop a complicated object?

You can first create a rough selection

and extract it. Check the result. If the
foreground or background becomes
semi-transparent, use the addition or
subtraction mode of the polygon tool to
add a pattern or use the matting tools
discussed in the previous chapter. Then repeat the matting until you get a
good result. The injection tool is also very useful in this case.
5. Digital Matting: Good to Know
Matting is understood as the process in which the foreground and back-
ground are separated within an image. In order for this to be realized, one
must generally follow a number of fundamental steps.

 Define the edges of the foreground object.

 Determination of opacity (transparent, semi-transparent or

opaque).

 Inverse Calculation of the original color tone of semi-transparent

pixels.

Why calculate semitransparent pixels inversely? The following example

illustrates this:

The pixels located in the semi-transparent area appear white in the original
photograph. Since these are semi-transparent, the green hue of the back-
ground is mixed with the white pixels.

When the object is cropped and placed in front of a new back-ground, this
pixel grouping shows a green shimmer. This effect can be avoided through
the inverse calculation and the resulting reinsertion of the original color
tone into semi-transparent border region of the object:

without inverse calculation with inverse calculation

5.1 Matting technologies in general

Standard Method

The simplest method when it comes to cropping involves marking the fore-
grounded object and removing it from the image. One problem with this
procedure is the fact that semi-transparent pixels are not taken into ac-
count when the object is removed.

Advanced Tools

Advanced Tools such as the magnetic lasso are also available for use, how-
ever the same problem arises as in the standard outline selection method,
that is that semi-transparent pixels are not included in the cropping proce-
dure.
5.2 Chromakey Matting
This procedure originates from the video sector. The object to be cropped
is filmed or photographed against a monochrome, usually blue or green,
background. All pixels that do not have this constant color are then as-
signed to the foreground.

With this procedure, however, it is assumed that the foreground object is

not transparent: a translucent garment, for example, would shimmer blue
in front of a chroma key, even if it were placed in a new background. This
leads to an unnatural look, as you can see in the early action movies during
stunts against an artificial backdrop.

This method is very useful, but has two limitations:

 The background color cannot be included in the foreground. If the

color is in the foreground, it is assigned to the background and
appears transparent or semi-transparent in the composition.

 In any case, a plain background is required. Differences in color

are not taken into account and added to the selection.

For this reason, chromakey technology is usually only used in professional

environments.

5.3 Inside/Outside Edge Matting

Due to the limitations of chromakey matting, we need another way of mat-
ting. This should have no background restrictions, support semi-
transparency and be easy to use.

These criteria are fulfilled by the " inside/outside edge matting " process,
which is very suitable for processing most photos.

With this type of cropping, the inner and outer edges of the object to be
cropped are defined. The selection of the inner area is done by marking an
area within the object to be uncovered. Work as close to the edge as possi-
ble. The outer area is then marked, working as closely as possible to the
outer edge. The area between the inner and outer edge is the semi-
transparent area.

Due to the fact that the program can never determine the actual color val-
ues 100% exactly, errors often occur during the first processing.

Common Error Examples

1. The exact recognition of the difference between the fore-ground and

background can even prove difficult for the human eye:
2. The program attempts to calculate the difference in the background and
foreground colors. However, when numerous differences make the fore-
grounded object less distinguishable from the background, errors can occur
in the calculation.
6. The Post-Matting Menu
After you have completed the Matting stage and optimized your cropped
result with the help of the various Matting-tools available, there is nothing
holding you back from continuing to the next stage of editing. If the Mat-
ting result reflects your desired outcome, click on the Apply button in the
Matting-Menu.

Following this the Post-Matting Menu will appear:

This Menu offers the following options:

 Change background: This option allows you to place your previ-

ously cropped object in front of a new background image of your
choice. For example, you can “change the location” of your newly
cropped object.

 Background blur: When you select this function, the program

switches to blur mode. In this mode, you can blur the background
of the image very variably. The background is retained and only
this background is affected by the blur effect. This allows you to
achieve impressive depth-of-field effects.
  Duplicate to layer: This function inserts the matting result as a
separate layer in the user interface. You can then use this layer as
you like. You can either save the matting result or edit it profes-
sionally with the numerous editing options and effects of CutOut
9.

 Split layer: This function can only be activated when working with
a base layer and saves both the foreground and background as
their own layers.

 Delete background: Only active if it is not a basic layer. The back-

ground is deleted and only the detached object is retained as the
layer.

In addition to these options, choosing the option Save Result will allow you
to save your Matting result to any location of your choice in either .png or
.psd format.
6.1 Changing the Background Image
Example:

To move it to a warmer place, we select Change Background in the Post-

Matting menu after the matting.

A file browser will open in which you can search for the background image
that will serve as the background for the penguin:

Navigate to your desired background image, select it and then click Open.
Now a dialog opens in which you have the possibility to set the size of the
background image individually. You can choose between Auto, As original
canvas size and As new base layer size. To select a different background
image, click on the button in the dialog box.

To confirm your setting click OK, to cancel the process click Cancel.

Afterwards, the object is displayed in front of the new background:

If you now click on the image, hold down the mouse button and move the
mouse back and forth, you can move the object, in this case the penguin, as
you like. If you move the object a little so that the edges of the image are
displayed, you can also enlarge or reduce the object by moving the mouse
to the corner of the edge of the image until the arrow shown appears:

Hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse to change the size.

When you move the mouse pointer to an area outside this border, the fol-
lowing icon appears:
Then hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse to rotate the
object at any angle. Theoretically you can turn the penguin upside down.

If you are satisfied with the size, angle and position of the object, click on
the "OK" button in the middle of the image:

The adjusted image now appears in the user interface:

In this case the penguin was reduced in size and moved to the left. In addi-
tion, the cropping result, i.e. the penguin with a transparent background, is
present in the area of the layers (red arrow in the image). So you can now
proceed with the cropped object afterwards as you like (edit, save etc.), if
you don't like the selected background after all.

To display the penguin without a background image, simply deactivate the

background layer by clicking on the "eye symbol":

6.2 Background Blur

Often you will have the following problem with your images: Your photo
shows an object, an animal or a person you want to focus on. However,
both the object and the background appear sharp. It is a good idea to bring
the target object into focus by blurring certain areas of the background
while keeping the target object sharp. Thus, the depth of field of the back-
ground should be changed. The Background Blur function of the Post-
Matting menu helps here.

In the example image you can see two flamingos, which are obviously the
target object of the photo. But also the background is sharp. It should now
be slightly blurred to focus more on the flamingos.

If you select Lens Blur after the matting process from the Post-Matting
menu, the Lens Blur menu appears:
(1) Radius Range: Here you can use the slider to define the radius of
the blur effect. As you will see, a high value increases the blur ef-
fect of the background.

(2) Highlight: Use the highlight slider to define how much highlights
of the background, i.e. bright image areas, should be highlighted.
In the example image, these are the bright areas in the water
where the sky is reflected. A high value makes these areas appear
even brighter and thus emphasizes them.

(3) Aperture Shape: Here you can change the lens shape to change
the type of blur effect. Try the different shapes until you find one
that suits your needs.

(4) Rotate Mask: Use this slider to change the direction of the blur ef-
fect between 0 and 360 degrees.

(5) Depth Mode: In depth mode, you can switch between Plain, Hori-
zon and Tunnel.
Select Plain to get a smooth blur effect across the entire back-
ground.
Select Horizontal to obtain a different amount of blur effect be-
tween near areas of the background and more distant areas.
 Select Tunnel to blur certain regions of the background.
The grid below allows you to specify the region or, if you select
Horizontal, the position of the horizon from which you want to
blur or sharpen.
In our example image, we select Horizontal to keep the close are-
as of the background, i.e. approximately the area in front of the
flamingos' legs, sharp and to blur the more distant areas of the
background. With the grid we determine the distance from which
the background image should be blurred:

Try a little around to become familiar with the features and un-
derstand the implications.

(6) Focus (close to far): This slider lets you ultimately reverse the
depth-of-field effect. For the example image, in which the hori-
zontal depth mode made the near background areas sharp and
the far background areas blurred, a change from focus (close to
far) from 0 to 100 would completely reverse the focus area. The
close background areas would become blurred and the far back-
ground areas would become sharp.

When you are satisfied with your depth of field effect, click Apply and then
OK. In the case of the sample image, the result is as follows:
As you can see, the close background areas and the flamingos are sharp, i.e.
in focus, whereas the more distant areas of the background are blurred.

In addition, the cropping result, i.e. the two flamingos with transparent
background, is now available in the layer area. So you can continue with the
extracted object afterwards (edit, save etc.) if you don't like the soft back-
ground.

To display the flamingos without background, simply deactivate the back-

ground layer by clicking on the "Eye symbol":
6.3 Duplicate to Layer
In the post-matting menu, select Duplicate to layer to simply obtain the
object just released in the matting menu as a separate layer without chang-
ing the background image or depth of field, and then edit (save, etc.) it
further.

6.4 Split Layer & Delete Background

The functions split layer und delete backgroud Layers cannot be chosen
after an object has been cropped form a base layer. These two functions
may only be applied when a Float-Layer has been edited in the Matting-
Menu. A Float Layer is a layer that has been created from a base layer, for
example when a selection has been made and copied from a base layer and
then added as its own layer.

The function split layer separates the foreground image from the back-
ground image and creates two individual layers. The first layer contains the
Matting result and the other the rest of the original image, of course with a
hole from where the object was cropped.

The function delete backgroud creates an individual layer for the newly
cropped object and deletes the remaining background of the original im-
age. Should you only need the cropping result and not the background, this
option is the right choice.

7. Edit images
In CutOut 9 you will find a variety of editing options for your images and
clipping results in addition to the options described for cropping objects.
Different effects and filters are available for optimizing your images.

To edit an image, select it in the album mode you are in when you start
CutOut 9, as described in the User Interface chapter, and click the Edit but-
ton.

The image will now be opened in editing mode.

The Image Assistant appears first:

In this menu
you can
quickly find
the right editing function for specific problems in your image. This assistant
offers you quick solutions without a long search. All the functions in this
menu can also be found in edit mode, so first we close the assistant and go
through the functions in edit mode step by step. If you don't want this as-
sistant to reappear every time you open an image in edit mode, simply
uncheck the box at the bottom left of Popup this wizard dialog upon open-
ing.

7.1 Editing Mode – Overview

(1) Editing Functions: The editing functions Matting, Transform, Light-

ing, Color and Enhancement are further divided into different ed-
iting components and tools which will help you to optimize your
image result. You can choose the editing function best suited for
your project needs from this menu. Clicking the button Menu will
allow you to select from all the editing options as well as further
adjust various program settings, such as the language prefer-
ences.

(2) Additional Functions: You can use the displayed icons to either ad-
just the image display size, save the image (diskette icon), call the
image assistant (doctor's case icon), display the image properties
(information icon), add an image as a new layer (image icon) or
print the image (printer icon).
(3) Histogram: This region displays the histogram of the current layer.
The percentage amount on the right denotes the zoom level.
Clicking on this percentage will allow you to change it.

(4) Help: Refers you to this manual.

(5) Tools: Here you will find the selection tools for specifying regions
of the image for editing in addition to various other useful editing
tools.

(6) Layers: In the layers-window you can view all available layers. You
can also delete, add, rename, relocate as well as adjust opacity
levels and merge layers in this window.

(7) Areas: Here you can save a selection made with a selection tool as
a mask and apply it again to a selected layer at any time.

(8) Project History: The project history shows you the steps you have
performed so far. Here you can undo or restore individual steps.
7.2 Editing Mode – Detailed View

7.2.1 Matting
Since matting has already been explained in detail, reference is made here
to the corresponding chapters of this manual.
7.2.2 Transform

With the sub-functions of the Transform menu you can rotate, crop, mirror,
change the image and canvas size or change the shape of your image.

Via Free Rotate you can rotate the base layer at any angle. Optionally, you
can specify whether the result should be cropped automatically or not:

This function can only be applied to the base layer.

With Free Cropping you can not only crop your image with a rectangular
selection, but also create an arbitrary square by moving the four touch
points and thus better adjust the area to be cropped:

If you have moved the anchor points according to your wishes, click OK and
the result will be accepted.

With Modify shape you can use the brush tool to distort the shape of the
image at any point. You can determine the size and strength of the brush
using the brush settings in the upper image menu:
Image size determines the width and height of the image as well as other
settings for the resizing process. As a resampling method, you have various
more or less complex algorithms at your disposal for the recalculation of
the image size.
Via Extend canvas you can change the size of the desktop. The size of the
image remains the same. In the right area you can set the position of the
image on the canvas and select the background color. Click OK to confirm.

7.2.3 Exposure
Often the exposure in photos is suboptimal. Either images are over-exposed
or under-exposed. Classical examples are pictures taken against the light or
in dark areas. These problems can be counteracted in CutOut 9 with the
exposure tools.

In order to determine the areas more precisely, zoom into the image, either
by clicking on the magnifying glass symbol, or simply by scrolling with the
mouse wheel. You can change the formatting of the preview view by click-
ing one of the options to the left of the plus symbol:

The symbol with the two ones shows the image in its true image size, thus
1:1; the symbol right beside it adjusts the size of the image to the window
and the symbol at the very bottom left allows to mix the before and after
image.

With the functions auto level (gamma space), auto contrast (gamma
space), auto level (linear space) and auto contrast (linear space) you can
have CutOut 9 automatically optimize the exposure with regard to contrast
(auto contrast) and tonal values (auto level).

With the Gamma space option, the automatic optimization takes place as a
gamma function and thus not linear, with the Vector Space option as a line-
ar function.

If your image is not optimal in terms of exposure, you can make improve-
ments in this way. If you don't like the result, simply click Undo in the pro-
gress window:

Now to the Threshold/BW function: This function converts your image to a

black and white image and allows you to define various settings.

The Threshold slider determines at which threshold areas are displayed

either white or black. For clarification: If you set the slider very high, i.e.
very far to the right, bright regions of the original image will also appear
black and only very bright regions will remain white.

Similarly, if you move the slider far to the left, very dark areas of the origi-
nal image will appear white and only the extremely dark areas of the origi-
nal image will remain black.

Use the slider Transition level between black and white to set the number
of gray tones that lie between pure black and pure white. If you only want
black and white, set this slider to zero.
The slider Size of adaptive area only becomes active when you set the
adaptive threshold option under method above. With the adaptive thresh-
old method, there is no global, fixed threshold value, but many local
threshold values. Use the slider to determine the size of these local areas,
each of which has its own threshold value.

In addition to the fixed threshold and the adaptive threshold, there are also
preset methods Diffuse and Halftone for selection. If the adjustments to
your image meet your preferences, click OK, otherwise click Cancel.

Adjust film features simulates the internal camera settings to adjust the
basic properties of the photo.
Use the slider Exposure in EV to adjust the global exposure value. Increase
the global exposure by moving the slider to the right or decrease the expo-
sure in the image by moving the slider to the left.

Use the Contrast and Dynamic slider to adjust shadows and highlights in the
image. A high value brightens the dark, shaded areas and darkens areas
with bright lights.

The Color temperature slider lets you determine whether the image should
tend to be cool or warm. This gives it either a red or a blue tint.

Color boost/Saturation adjusts the saturation in the image. High values will
increase the intensity of the colors in the image, while low values will de-
crease the color intensity. A value of zero will render the image colorless,
i.e. in grayscale.
Use the Grain und Sharpness sliders to create a grain in the image or sharp-
en the image. If the adjustments to your image meet your preferences, click
OK, otherwise click Cancel.

7.2.4 Color

With the color tools you can make all conceivable color corrections for your
picture. Some of the tools overlap with those in the Exposure section.

With the auto white balance you can leave the white balance completely
to CutOut 9. The color temperature of the light is automatically adjusted.

If you don't like the result, simply click Undo in the progress window:

The function Adjust Color allows you to individually adjust the color scheme
of any one of the images. Before proceeding, you can choose to edit using
either RGB or HSL. Options in the Hue Range bar make it possible to ex-
clude specific tonal ranges from being affected by further changes. These
can be defined by adjusting values along the slide control.
If the adjustments to your image meet your preferences, click OK, other-
wise click Cancel.

The Adjust film features function was introduced already introduced previ-
ously in the manual. Please refer to the chapter covering the various expo-
sure tools and functions for more information.

7.2.5 Enhancement

These Enhancement Tools deliver plenty of possibilities to optimize your

image, remove flaws and make necessary corrections.
Using Smart erase CutOut 9 automatically removes disturbances from your
image. However, this requires that you first select the image area in which
the disturbance occurs with the selection tool. Select a selection tool from
the Tools window and select the disturbance in the image by clicking the
area step by step. Double-click to complete the selection:

In this case a disturbing stone is to be removed from the ground, so it is

selected with the selection tool:

After selection, the smart erase tool is chosen; this tool is also available in
the selection menu represented by a small circle-symbol:
This is the result:

The stone has thus been “intelligently” removed and the remaining hole
filled with the surrounding ground pattern. This function is well suited for
removing distracting folds in clothing or skin impurities when editing por-
traits. If the adjustments to your image meet your preferences, click OK,
otherwise click Cancel.

The Shape adjusting (brush) allows for the free distortion of your image.
Using the brush-tool, simply hold down the left mouse button and glide
your cursor across the image. Brush-settings can be further adjusted in the
window on the upper left-hand side of the screen. If the adjustments to
your image meet your preferences, click OK, otherwise click Cancel.

The Optimizing brush is almost identical to the Smart Erase tool introduced
in this chapter. However, with this tool, selections of regions containing
elements in need of improvement are not made with one of the various
selection tools, rather with the brush tool.
The Sharpen tool offers several ways to increase the sharpness of your
image. Sharpen automatically sharpens the image. With Shrink Edge, edges
in the image are automatically detected and reduced, which also causes
sharpening in the image. Sharpen texture is used to sharpen the image
structure.

With the slide control you can designate the intensity and radius of the
sharpening effect.

Manually reducing edges can be done by designating anchor points along

the curve. These points can always be relocated at any time. An alternative
option would be simply choosing one of the available preset options.

You can perform a manual edge reduction using a curve fitting. Click on any
point in the curve to add further handle points that you can then move as
required. Alternatively, select one of the displayed presets.

There are also several options available for the blur tool: Blur creates an
automatic blurring of the image. With the Gaussian blur you can determine
the area radius manually and with the lens blur you even have several set-
ting options. For an explanation of these, please refer to the chapter on
post-matting. This chapter explains the functionality of the lens blur in de-
tail.

Next to the Style option you will find two options: Image distortion and
realistic drawing. Click on Image Interferences and you can add noise and
scratches to the image using various controls. Realistic Drawing mode is
recommended for photos with clear outlines and few colors. Large image
files should be scaled smaller to increase processing speed.
CutOut 9 offers an additional collection of filters which can applied to your
images.

Instant Filters: Quickly and easily adapt and optimize all your photos with
the Instant Filter collection. Clicking on any of the filters at the left will dis-
play your image with this filter as a preview. Apply will adopt the filter ef-
fect you’ve selected.

If the adjustments to your image meet your preferences, click OK, other-
wise click Cancel.
7.2.6 Tip for the Edit Mode
In CutOut 9 you have the ability to simultaneously open multiple images for
editing. To do this, select an additional image from the Album folder and
click on Edit after already having opened the first in Editing Mode.

7.2.7 Tools
On the right side of the Menu in Editing Mode, you’ll notice four different
windows labeled Tools, Layers, Areas and History.

You have the following options from the tool collection at your disposal:

The first row contains the selection tools used to designate individual re-
gions within your images. These include the polygon tool, the free selec-
tion tool, the rectangle and circle tool as well as the color selection tool—
used to designate regions according to their color tones. After selecting the
polygon tool, for example, click on the desired region and end your selec-
tion with a right-click of the mouse. You can continue editing this selection
with any of the additional Editing tools at your disposal. In the area sur-
rounding your selection, a dropdown will appear providing you with further
editing options:
New Magnet Tool : This function is best suited for selecting objects with
clearly identifiable edges situated in front of simple backgrounds. Once
you’ve outlined an object within your image with one of the various selec-
tion tools, the selection menu will appear. Click on the magnet icon to au-
tomatically improve your selection. This way, you can quickly and easily
select less complex objects without having to switch to Matting Mode.

In the second line you will find from left to right:

 Free Paint Tool: This tool allows you to paint in any color you
wish. Furthermore, the brush settings can be adjusted at the top
of screen.
  Camera paint/Copy Pixels: Once you have chosen this tool, de-
termine the brush settings to your liking at the top of the screen.
Now, click on any point in the image you wish to serve as the pixel
source. This pixel grouping will be copied wherever you paint
throughout the picture. This tool serves as an appropriate solu-
tion for improving or fixing imperfect areas in your image with
like-natured pixel groupings.

 Modify Shape: This tool, represented by the apple-symbol, ena-

bles you to distort your image by simply painting over desired ar-
eas.
 Repair: Select this tool and paint over a region you wish to im-
prove. This area is enhanced according to the properties of the
immediate surroundings. Just like that you can quickly and easily
remove small imperfections and problem areas within your im-
age.

In addition to the cropping and trimming options mentioned in the chapter

covering the various transformation functions, you can use tools from the
third row to add text to your images. To do this, first click on the area in
which you want the text to appear. Following this, the text settings menu
will appear where you can format the text and select the font. Your text
input will appear as its own layer in the Layer window allowing for it to be
edited and transformed or for filers to be applied, just as any other layer
type.

7.2.8 Layers

image in Editing-Mode will result in that image being the only layer availa-
ble for editing. Once text is added, image regions are copied or cropping
results are created, these will all appear in the Layers section and can be
further selected or edits with one click of the mouse.

The left side of the Layers window contains the options concerning the
addition of new layers, the deletion and merging of selected layers as well
as renaming and saving functions for existing layers. The two small arrows
are the bottom allow you to change the order in which the layers appear.
Layers situated “higher” on the list will cover layers lower down. The key-
board combination STRG + C and STRG + V allows for layers to be copied
and pasted, in other words duplicated.

After selecting a layer, clicking the eye-symbol will either show or hide this
specific layer. The tab below controls the opacity settings for the respective
layer (not available for base layers). Reducing this value makes the layer
more transparent. The dropdown menu for Merging Layers can be accessed
by clicking on the Normal option (also unavailable with base layers).

The following options are available when merging layers:

Darken: According to the color information present in each color channel,

this option designates darker colors (base or mix color) when determining
the color result. Pixels brighter than the mix color are replaced and pixels
darker than the base color remain un-modified.

Lighten: According to the color information present in each color channel,

this option designates brighter colors (base or mix color) as the color result.
Pixels darker than the mix color are replaced and pixels brighter remain
unmodified.

Multiply: This option multiplies the base color by the mix color ac-cording
to the color information present in each color channel. The color result is
always a darker one. Multiplying a color with black always results in a black
color result and multiplying a color by white has no effect on the base col-
or. When painting with a color other than black or white, colors will darken
with each consecutive stroke. This effect resembles the effect of overlap-
ping colors when drawing with multiple highlighters.
Screen: The pixel values in each of the layers is inverted, multiplied, and
inverted once again. This is the reverse effect of the Multiplica-tion mixing
mode. This results is a brighter picture.

Overlay: The Overlapping Mode is a combination of multiplication and divi-

sion. The deciding factor for this mode is the top layer. However much
brighter the colors in the top layer are determines how bright the colors in
the mid tone area will appear. The opposite can also be applied: However
darker the colors in the top layer appear, all the more darker the mid tones
in the bottom layer will appear. In contrast with Multiplication Mode, the
Overlapping function doesn’t have such a darkening effect.

Hard Light: This mode performs a multiplication, or in some cases, a nega-

tive multiplication, of the colors (independent of the mix color). The effect
resembles the effect of a spotlight shone directly on the image. If the mix
color (light source) has a brightness level exceeding that of 50% of gray, the
image will be brightened. If the mix color has a brightness level darker than
that of 50% of gray, the image will be darkened (similar to the after-
exposure effect).

Soft Light: Colors are either lightened or darkened depending on the mix
color. The effects resembling the indirect illumination of the image with a
spotlight. If the mix color (light source) has a brightness level exceeding
that of 50% of gray, the image will be brightened. If the mix color has a
brightness level darker than that of 50% of gray, the image will be darkened
(similar to the after-exposure effect). Mixing using pure white or black will
not result in pure white or black, rather a relatively darker or lighter out-
come.

Difference: This mode subtracts the color (base or mix color) possessing the
lowest brightness level with the color from that possessing the highest
brightness level according to the color information present in each channel.
In this case, mixing with white results in an inversion of the color values of
the base color. Mixing with black yields no change.
7.2.9 Areas

In the Area window, you can save areas that you have selected with one of
the selection tools and apply them again later. Click on the recycle bin icon
to delete the selected area from the clipboard.

7.2.10 History

The Project History displays all changes made to your project and allows
you to go back to any previous stage of editing and redo or undo certain
changes made during your work process. You can save your project history
as a Scheme-File (.Idscm Format) and apply it to further projects at a later
date.
8. Program Settings
Clicking the Menu icon in Album mode or Edit mode opens a drop-down
menu with several options.

Clicking on Program will allow you to change the language settings. Select-
ing the Settings option under the Program tab will open the Program Set-
tings menu:

Here you can define some settings for CutOut 9. For example, the check
mark in Adjust Film Features after opening a RAW file ensures that when
you load an image in RAW
format, this image is first
opened in the menu for
Adjust Film Features and
not directly in Edit mode.
You can also choose be-
tween a light and a dark
user interface.
10. Opening and Saving Files
CutOut 9 supports:

 Opening of common image formats including: Jpeg, Gif, Tif, TGA,

Pcx, Png, Bmp as well most camera RAW-Formats.

 Camera RAWs: *.raw, *.nef (Nikon), *.cr2 (Canon), *.crw (Canon),

*.orf (Olympus), *.mrw (Minolta), *.raf (Fujifilm), *.pef (Pentax),
*.dcr (Kodak), *.srf (Sony), *.erf, *.dng (Adobe), *.arw (Sony),
*.rw2 (Lumix) …

The program supports the output formats Jpg, Png, Tif, Bmp, and many
more.
 Quality
The Jpeg compression quality.

 Adjust File Size

Enter a desired file size and the program will try to create a
corresponding quality with the settings.
 High Quality
Use YUV 1:1:1 for Jpeg decoding.

 Adaptive
Use the adaptable quantum table for Jpeg decoding. This
may reduce the file size.

 Exif Data
Choose whether you want to keep all, a few or no EXIF da-
ta in the file. EXIF data requires about 1-64K of the file size.

 Compression Optimization
The program will try to reduce the file size by optimization.

 Maximum File Size

Set the limit of the image size. If this limit is exceeded, the
image is automatically reduced.

 Method
If the final file size exceeds the maximum file size, the pro-
gram selects a method to reduce the file size. The method
includes downscaling the image size or reducing the quali-
ty. The reduction process is automatic.
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