you can try, I just cut a thin slit to go across all the legs on one side, the surface tension of the solder usually pulls it onto the legs and off the solder mask as long as you dont over do it
course the finer the pitch the harder it gets, a 44 is no problem, but you can hand paste those as well, 176? you might have bridges
I never bother unless I have more than a couple boards. I had to do 25 simple rectifier boards the other day at work and that saved a ton of time, as I ran the sheet through the laser printer first and cut out the SMC diode pads as if they were in a panel
little tape, and a putty knife bam 5 done at a time