Important Of Masking & Clipping Path

Important Of Masking & Clipping Path

Both masking and clipping are two of the most practiced graphical aspects in businesses, companies and among individuals. But sometimes, people who are in their early days of graphic design or marketing visuals, get confused between these two.

Upon popular demand, we’ve decided to put an end to this debate. In this article today, we are going to talk about the importance and differences of masking and clipping path.

Let’s keep reading-

What Is Clipping Path?
Clipping is a commonly used technique that is done using the Pen tool in Photoshop. If you want to remove an unexpected object from a photo or frame, that’s where the clipping path comes in.

The main purpose of the clipping path is to make the photo more accurate, smooth and make the edges more perfect.

What Is Image Masking?
Image masking is another of the frequently practiced background removal process used by designers. But the number of tools used in this process is way more than the clipping path, and the process is way more complicated as well.

Where clipping path only uses the pen tool and other tiny features of Photoshop, masking uses the background eraser tool, magic eraser tool and the process of color separation. Among all of these tools, the background eraser tool is the most used one.

Importance of Clipping Path
In the case of both visual and business points of view, there is much importance of the act of clipping path. As example-

To make the edited photos real and natural, there is hardly any alternative to clipping path. Otherwise, the photos will look poorly taken or unreal.
While creating a clipping path, designers use to zoom 200% or more. So, the level of accuracy earned in a clipping path work is almost close to the real.


A nicely and professionally done clipping path can give you a good boost to your business. On the other hand, a poorly executed clipping path may ruin your entire brand value.

Importance of Image Masking
Like clipping path techniques, masking also plays a great role in the world of business graphics. Here are some of the key points of them-

Image masking is helpful to remove complicated backgrounds from an image. In case your image has a subject with lots of lines and small details, that’s where the task of masking comes in.
In businesses where you have to sell products only, masking is a must. Because customers and potential customers like to watch the products in detail. So, tiny mistakes and unclear parts will be creating bad impressions among your customers.

When it comes to products where detailing is important, image masking has no other alternatives. It preserves the tiny details in the images.

Bottom Line
In a bird’s eye view, it is hard to detect all the differences between image masking and clipping path. But for an expert point of view, both of them are equally important in business. No matter whichever type of business you own, you should keep a sharp eye on both of these aspects of commercial graphic works.