3 Masking Effects in Premiere Pro
Below I’ll lay out step-by-step instructions for 3 masking effects you can use in Premiere Pro. I want to encourage you to check out the video tutorial to see these steps in action!
Text animation with a mask
Type out your text
Choose your font size and color
Essential graphics align and transform to put it in the center of the screen
Use the rectangle shape tool to draw a rectangle shape line under the text
Use the horizontal alignment to make sure the line is also centered
Rename the shape to line
Now let’s create the mask and animate it using the effect controls on the left
Under shape line layer click on the rectangle mask tool
In the program monitor resize it so the entire line fits inside
Move the play head to where you want the line to appear in the animation
Click the stopwatch by mask path to set a key frame and begin the animation
Now move the play head to the beginning, select the mask, and in the program monitor move the mask to the left, off screen
Now from the point a key frame to point b key frame, the line is revealed from left to right
Now let’s animate the text so it looks like it’s coming up from out of the line
Go to the text layer in the effects tab
Click on the rectangle mask again but this time make sure the mask covers all the text and crosses over the middle of the line below it
Drop the feathering on the mask to 0
Move the playhead to the point where you want the text fully revealed and click the stopwatch icon next to position
Move the playhead to where you want to begin and move the position of the text down so it disappears behind the mask
Now when we play it back the line appears and then the text moves up from the line
To make it more smooth you can select the key frames and right click and hit ease in
Now we’ll create an outro where we reverse the animation we just made
Move the playhead to where you want the outdo to begin and set a keyframe for the text
Move the playhead to when you want the text to disappear
Move the text down until it’s behind the mask
Now go to the line layer and set a keyframe for when you want that animation to begin
Move the playhead to the point when you want the line to disappear
Select the mask, go to program monitor, move the mask shape to the right
Now when you watch it it animates in and out
Text reveal with a mask
A boat is moving from left to right and as it moves you want to reveal some text. You could use this for something like your opening credits
So let’s type some text, make is small and thin font so it fits behind the boat
Go to timeline and make the layers the same length as the footage layer
Move the playhead to the beginning of the timeline, go to effects, select the text layer, open opacity, and use the pen tool to draw a mask around the boat and the text
Then select the inverted box so the text is hidden
Now to animate the mask to move with the boat, select the stopwatch next to Mask Path, then move the playhead to the end of the clip, and move the mask in the program monitor to the mask’s new position
As you play it back you can see that it isn’t perfect. To make minor adjustments, play the clip and when you see that the mask is off the path, select the mask path, and then move the mask, this will make a new keyframe
Cool reveal, but let’s make the text look like it’s moving with the water
Go to effects, wave warp, drag and drop on the text layer
Watching it back it is way too wavy. Lower the height, the width needs to be wider, and lower the speed
Enter to render and watch the reveal
Mask for screen reflections
Shot of a man with glasses on - computer screen could be reflected into his glasses in a shot.
Drop the computer coding clip on top of the man in the timeline
Reduce the scale and position of the clip so it sits inside the glasses
Reduce the opacity (60%) so it’s more transparent
Move to the beginning of the clip, under opacity, draw a mask around the lens using the pen tool
Add some feathering (30), change blend mode to linear dodge add
It looks good but as we watch I can see that there is some movement to the video of the man, so we’ll need to keyframe a path
Select the stopwatch under mask path to create a keyframe, then as you scrub through, just move the mask to correct it