How to Use Masks in PowerDirector

A mask decides which parts of a clip you can see and which parts are hidden, so whatever sits on the track underneath shows through the hidden half. That one idea covers split screens, letterbox bars, vignettes and shaped cut-outs, which is why the tool is worth learning once.

The mask marks one region visible and everything else hidden. Nothing is deleted: the hidden part is still there, it is simply not drawn, so the track below shows through instead.

Select the clip and click Edit, then open the Mask tab. The grid at the top is the whole menu: no mask, a custom image mask, the two line masks, and a row of ready-made shapes.

The Linear Mask cuts the frame with a single line, which is how you build a split screen. Everything on one side of the line is kept.

Drag the green circle at the middle of the line to rotate it. Hover over the line itself and, when the cursor becomes a crosshair, drag to move it. The fields underneath take typed values when you want the same angle on several clips.

A hard edge between two clips announces itself. Click Advanced and raise Feather Radius to blend the join instead.

Invert mask, below the same controls, swaps which side is kept. It saves rebuilding a mask you have already placed correctly but backwards.

The Parallel Mask keeps a band between two lines. Hover the white dot on a line until the cursor becomes a double arrow, then drag to set how far apart they sit. The pair rotates and moves together.

Two uses come up constantly: horizontal bands give a clip a cinematic letterbox, and a rotated band is the basis of a three-way split screen.

The rest of the grid is ready-made shapes: circle, heart, brush strokes and more. Pick one and it becomes the visible region, which the video gives as the quick route to a sticker or a shaped cut-out.

When no preset shape fits, supply your own. Click Create a custom mask from an image and drop the file into the Image Mask Tool.

A PNG gives you a choice in the Create Mask dialog: Alpha channel of the image builds the mask from the transparent areas, while Gray level of the image builds it from the brighter areas. The dialog also notes that other image formats skip the choice and use gray levels directly, since they carry no transparency to read.