Photoshop Masking

[garyb]

Hi hope someone can help.

Basically I have 72 images from 72 Canon EOS cameras.

The model is all white and should have been taped up but the photographer forgot!

So I have a white model on a white background

I've created masks in photoshop which only allows you to save as Bit map files to include the Alpha Channel.

When importing Bitmap files into Photoscan it loses all the camera information.

Is this right or am I doing something fundamentally wrong?

Creating 72 masks is pretty time consuming so hopefully someone can help and save me time.

Thanks for any info
Gary

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Gary,

Can you send a pair of images - original image and corresponding file with the mask to support@agisoft.com?

[garyb]

Alex judging by your response should I be creating masks as separate files?

Therefore importing original files and then importing each mask for each image?

I'll send a couple of test images I've worked on from home.

Unfortunately I can't send you the actual images to be worked on as these are at my workplace

Regards
Gary

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Gary,

There are two ways, either you have the masks saved in alpha-channel of the same file, or you have a separate file with mask (containing mask as alpha or just black&white image). To work with the first approach you need to find a way to keep the EXIF information, so probably the images should be re-saved in TIFF format.
As for the second way, for the actual sets of input data (JPG + BMP sets) you can load all JPGs to the chunk, then use Import Masks -> From File, specify the filename template as "{filename}.bmp" (using Replacement option and apply to all cameras in the chunk).
Probably you can find the way to save the black&white images containing the masks only, since having so large bitmaps may be inconvenient.

[garyb]

Thanks for the reply Alex I shall give it a go

Regards
Gary

[garyb]

Hi Alex

just did a quick test.

In Photoshop I created masks in the Alpha Channel and saved the jpgs to tifs.

This retained camera information and I could import Alpha masks from file.

Looks like the way to go.

Thanks for your help

Gary