Hi. I’m trying to mask the person out of the wall in a video. I’ve tried masking it manually but the borders have parts of the wall and it doesn’t look nice. Is there a more effective way to do this? Thanks a lot.
No. Roto is a tedious thing to do, but if you can’t pull some kind of key, it is the only way. Practice makes it easier 
Some first things to consider when doing manual roto:
- break the focus item into smaller parts that don’t change their shape too much (head, ear, neck, shoulder, upper arm, lower arm and so on);
- approach the roto as animation, try to place keyframes at movement extremes and then add inbetweens to get it stick;
- try to move the shapes as a whole as much as possible, try not to fiddle with individual control points because it introduces edge wobble;
- being constantly slightly wrong is better than wobbling.
Many thanks! It is looking much better now, but the edges are still a bit weird. Have you got any other tips on how to fix that?
There is considerable amount of wobble still, probably way too many keyframes. The person in shot does not seem to move much at all. And edges are way too soft. Always try to match the overall softness of the image, also taking into account the focus aspect. If image looks sharp, edges must also look sharp (enough).
There are lots of features on the wall to track, why not stabilise it then perform the roto?
… and, frankly, the shot you posted “does not ‘draw my eye.’” In other words, it does not steal-away my attention from seeing a boy standing in front of a (changing) scene. It might now be “good enough for peace work.”