lorace_graham

There are so many wonderful articles on here to help us know how to create masks in our pictures.

But, as a newcomer, I'd appreciate knowing How to think about masks. In what situations would I think, Oh, yes - a mask would do the trick?

Does this make sense? Like I know when and why to choose the lasso, the move tool, the clone stamp, etc. But I don't know when or why I should choose to create a mask. (except for frames).

Thanks for any help with my foggy thinking.

Lorace

richard_coencas

Lorace,

There are many reasons and I'll let others chime in, but one is to give the appearance that one object is behind another. Example, you have a picture of a person and a picture of a tree, and want to make it look like the person is peeking out from behind the tree. A mask in the shape of the tree covering half the person would accomplish this.

The advantage of using a mask is that you don't erase any of the person, and can reposition them later.

Rich

eric_matthes

Lorace,
I use PSE to make minor adjustments to photos, no piecing together parts of different pictures. But I use masks all the time to make adjustments to different parts of a picture. For example, a properly adjusted sky with a dark foreground; mask out the sky, and the adjustments will apply only to the foreground.

Both good reasons to use a mask.

I also use a mask when making a particularly difficult selection.

I make a lose selection around the subject, then make a new layer and call it "mask" and with the new layer active, I fill the selection with white, then I inverse the selection and fill the inverse with black. Now I lower the opacity of the white/black layer so I can see the actual image through it.

Now I paint with wither white or black so the white exactly covers what I want to select. When I'm satisfied that the subject is all white on the mask layer, I use the magic wand to select the white and Voila!! I have a selection which I then save.

You can now delete the mask layer if you want and use the saved selection to pick out your subject.

Hope this helps, Margaret

nancy_s

Margaret,

You could also just add a layer mask and not have the difficulty seeing your subject 'under' your new layer. Using the rubylith color scheme you paint with black to cover up what you want to hide (though it shows as as semi-transparent red which you can see through). The part you wish to keep is always portrayed exactly as the in the 'original'. Just a thought.

Nancy

lorace_graham

I want to thank each of you very, very much for your wonderful suggestions. It's so nice of you to take the time and effort to help those of us to whom all this is so new.

You may clap your hands for me tonite, as I had my first real, real breakthrough with maskes. I had been working with Jay Arraich's online tips about Layer Masks. And I think I worked on this for three nights and never got anywhere.

Then, tonight, I realized when I was blacking out something, I should click on the mask itself, rather than on the picture. And I watched the pumpkin disappear right before my eyes and the background came through and his hat was floating on the background picture. Eureka! I about fell through the floor.

Just a little thing, but what a thrill it was to me!

So, I've printed out your notes and will utilize them in my practice sessions.

What a great, helpful group. Thanks.

Lorace

Nancy, you're confusing me. What do you mean by "layer mask" ?

If you mean create an adjustment layer and then use the "mask" box - I find my method works better for me because the white/black shows exactly what I've painted over.

In Photoshop 6, there is a layer mask that I use all the time, but in PSE, the best advice I could find was to fake it the way I'm doing.

Please enlighten me,

Margaret

nancy_s

Margaret,

Whatever works best for you is the way to go. I was just mentioning that it is possible to use a true layer mask, such as you routinely use in PS6 (not using the mask from an adjustment layer to which you input nothing).

Free third party add-ons give this functionality (and many other useful features) to PSE, both versions.

<http://share.studio.adobe.com/axQuickSearchSubmit.asp?txt=tools&allprods=2&submi t1.x=30&submit1.y=10>

"This package comes with some actions pre-installed and several free tools, including:

true layer masks
quick mask
Selective Color adjustment layers
Channel Mixer adjustment layers
Action Playback speed control"

If you happen to use PSE version 1, as I do, this will also give you a layer mask (for Windows)

Ctrl/A > Ctrl/C > Ctrl/shift/V > Ctrl/J
and then link the thumbnails

Nancy

I thought you meant that it was built in to PSE

Margaret

nancy_s

Margaret,

Well it is now built into my copy , through the add-ons, though I often just use the keyboard shortcuts to create one.

Nancy