Using mask outputs from refinement jobs for further processing

Hello All,

I was wondering about the mask outputs of NU-refinement, local-refinement, and other similar jobs. What are they generally used for afterwards?

Is it alright to take these jobs’ mask output, crop out some regions that I do not want, e.g. a large blob of noise, and then reupload it to CryoSPARC and use it as a mask for further refinement? Is there anything I need to take into consideration if I choose to do it this way? Or do I strictly need to use the map outputs from the refinement or ab initio and create a mask out of those?

Thanks in advance,