However, because I used a mask, all I have to do is fill that mask with white and immediately all of my fire detail returns. If I had erased my fire in the example above, it would be gone forever and bringing it back would involve importing the layer all over again. With a mask, you not only have the ability to make remarkably detailed decisions about the transparency of a layer or group of layers, even better, you have the freedom to go back and refine or scrap those changes at any time. This same concept gave birth to masks many years ago. For instance, Filters used to be a permanent and destructive change, if you blurred a layer, it was stuck that way! Now, with Smart Filters, you can always go back and adjust or even delete the blur.
With every new iteration of Photoshop, Adobe gives us more and more ways to make non-destructive edits, meaning those that don’t truly alter the original pixel data. With this in mind, try to imagine what the mask below would do to a layer: White means 100% opacity and black means 0% opacity. The color that you paint tells Photoshop how opaque to make the pixels at that point. On this invisible canvas, you can paint white, black or any level of gray in-between. There are ways to see it that we’ll check out later but just know that as a general rule, applying a mask to a layer won’t cause any immediate visual differences unless you have an active selection at the time. When you add a mask to a layer, it covers the entire thing with an invisible grayscale canvas. If you want the entire layer to be at 30%, you would lower the opacity, if you want just the left side of a layer to be at 30%, you would use a mask. Where layer opacity controls the transparency of the entire layer at once, a mask gives you more precise controls over very specific areas. Layer MasksĪ layer mask is something that you apply to a given layer to control the transparency of that layer. Let’s start by discussing layers masks, which are generally what people are referring to when you hear them discuss Photoshop masking. These two tools are closely related in concept, but very different in application. There are two primary types of masks: clipping masks and layer masks. At its simplest definition a mask is a way to apply something to a very specific portion of an image.
The term “mask” isn’t immediately understandable to someone outside the realm of graphic design. I would posit that until you thoroughly understand how and why to use masks, you simply don’t understand the power of Photoshop. Layers are probably the single most important addition to Photoshop since the original version, but layer masks are a close second. I'm sorry if this sounds abit odd, i tried many online sources and i couldn't find the specific answer.CMS Templates Shopify, Tumblr & More Graphic Templates Logos, Print & Mockups Fonts Sans Serif, Script & More < here you can see how I manually have to color the shape, but i want to allow the freedom of just putting an image with its "holes" so it automaticaly does it < here you may see the shapes that I want to be cleared/masked. so lets say i output a final logo file, and i drag it into a background-colored image, the bg color will reflect through the holes i "inverted" in the masked folder. So I want to be able to design the shapes inside, and that the final design will have the "holes" in it. btu it is always croppy, and it never gives me the fine abilities that the path tool gives me.
#Layer masking in photoshop how to
the thing is, that I know how to do it through adding all into one folder, and then using the marquee/selection tool. Instead of making a shape in a shape, it will mask a hole in it with the same shape. I want to design a specific shape, and to make a layered mask "folder" and be able to add shapes into that folder that will reflect transparency to the main masked layer. It is really hard to explain, but kind of easy to understand once you actually see what I mean.