Anoneh's Blog

Layer Mask in photoshop

22/07/2009 at 1:11 am | Posted in photoshop | Leave a comment

In real life, if you want to paintbrush something, say the alphabet “A” on a helmet, you would mask the area on the helmet that you do not want the paint to fall using a masking tape.  In Photoshop, you can do the same  using layer mask.

To create a Layer Mask either go through Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All or at the bottom of the layer palette click the icon three in from the left (the circle in a rectangle one).  This will create a white rectangle to the right of the selected layer. Click on this box, the brush colours will probably turn black and white, if not hit D to return them to Black and White defaults.

Now simply use the brush to paint on your object. Where you paint black that layer is invisible, where it’s white the layer is visible. Pretty simple really. Any shade of grey between has a different level of transparency depending on how dark it is.