An apparatus for shifting data is disclosed. The apparatus includes a shifter, a register, and a shift post processor. The shifter shifts an operand according to an offset parameter, thereby generating a shifted operand. The register is coupled to the shift post processor to transfer a shift carry operand stored in the register to the shift post processor, and coupled to the shifter to store the shifted operand after any transfer of the shift carry operand. The shift post processor is coupled to the shifter and the register to process the shifted operand to generate an output based on at least a control signal and a mask field. The shift post processor comprises a decoder to decode the offset parameter into the mask field, the mask field having a plurality of mask bits, each of the mask bits corresponding to a bit position of the shifted operand.