Working with Layers and Masks - Adobe Photoshop CS6 Essentials - page 191

Using Masks

You've seen how to use the mysterious Blend If controls to blend two images
globally using various blend modes and according to tonal range. You might be
pleased to use a more direct method called layer masks. As the name suggests,
masks allow you to hide pixels. Just which pixels you mask is up to you to indi-
cate by either painting or drawing. In the following steps you will explore pixel,
vector, and clipping masks.

Certification
Objective

1. Reopen the Blending.psd file you saved in the previous section
or go to the topic's Downloads page at www.sybex.com/go
/photoshopessentials , browse to Chapter 8, download the sample
files, and open Blending.psd .

O

2. Click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
Layer 1 now has an additional thumbnail representing the pixel layer
mask. The black corners framing the thumbnail indicate that the
layer mask is selected by default (see Figure 8.17).

density controls the
black areas of the
mask. a white mask
means nothing is
hidden. a black
mask blocks every-
thing on the layer.
a gray mask will
partially obscure the
layer depending on
its tonal value.

FIGURe 8.17 Creating a
pixel layer mask

3. Press B to select the Brush tool. Select a medium round brush with
50% hardness from the brush picker drop-down on the options bar.
Press X to exchange foreground and background colors so that black
is in the foreground. Paint over the central part of the dome image to
mask these pixels and reveal the rose on the Background layer. Open
the Masks panel and drag the Feather slider to 20 px. Pixel masks
allow you to create soft edges (see Figure 8.18).