Cuddle
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Question · Editing

How does person and object masking work?

Short answer

Cuddle’s masking finds a person or object in the first frame, tracks it through the shot on your Mac, and places a cutout above your original clip. You can soften its edge afterward in Effect Controls.

What happens

  1. Pick the subject. Your AI looks at the first frame and marks the person or object. For people, Cuddle includes what they’re holding.

  2. Track it. Cuddle follows the subject through the shot and shows your AI a contact sheet, with any shaky stretches outlined so it can fix them.

  3. Place the cutout. Cuddle puts a cutout of the subject on the tracks above your clip. Your original clip and its audio stay as they were.

Good to know

  • Masking needs macOS 15 or newer, and uses about a gigabyte of memory while it tracks.
  • Tracking runs at about the speed of the shot itself on Apple silicon, so a 30-second shot takes around 30 seconds.
  • If part of the background leaks in, your AI marks the spot and Cuddle fixes the rest of the shot from there.
  • If tracking stops partway, ask your AI to try again.
  • Mattes live in a Masks folder next to your project file, so they travel with the project.
  • Soften, or feather, the edge anytime in Effect Controls. No re-tracking needed.
  • The clip needs to play at normal speed, with its framing not animated. Your AI can animate the framing after the cutout is placed.
  • Effects that move the picture, like Transform or Crop, carry over to the cutout.

Have another question? Ask Bear.