{"id":4240,"date":"2011-04-04T07:41:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T16:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/?p=4240"},"modified":"2011-11-21T14:37:12","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T23:37:12","slug":"quick-layer-masks-with-photoshop-cs5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/quick-layer-masks-with-photoshop-cs5\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Layer Masks with Photoshop CS5"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Digital Imaging Tips by Dan Moughamian<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most important techniques you can learn in Photoshop is the\u00a0ability to mask your layers. This allows you to isolate changes to specific\u00a0areas, while leaving others unaffected or only partially affected. There are\u00a0many ways to create layer masks (as many ways as there are to create\u00a0selections) but for many shots I find the following steps work great,\u00a0especially when there are distinct color regions to help guide you.<\/p>\n

1. Activate the Quick Selection tool (tap W or Shift-W if the Magic Wand\u00a0tool is active when you start this process), then, using a region of\u00a0contiguous color, click and drag until all or most of the region is\u00a0selected. Use Shift-click to add and Option\/Alt-click to remove regions from\u00a0the initial selection. You don’t have to get it perfect just get close!<\/p>\n

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2. Click the Refine Edge button in the Options Bar, and when the dialog\u00a0window opens, you should see a black “mask” cover the unselected parts of\u00a0your image. Click the Refine Radius option and set your radius high enough\u00a0so that as you brush over the edges of your selection, Photoshop can detect\u00a0where the color and contrast changes. I find a setting between 2 and 10\u00a0pixels will usually do the trick. Some experimentation is required.<\/p>\n

3. Using the Refine Radius tool (which is active by default in the Refine\u00a0Edge dialog), \u00a0roughly brush over over all of the edges in your selection,\u00a0outlining your entire subject. When you finish the brush stroke, after a\u00a0second or two, you should have a very precise looking selection. Again you\u00a0can hold down the Option\/Alt key as you brush to mask pixels you don’t want\u00a0selected. If needed, use the Adjust Edge controls to soften the selection or\u00a0expand\/contract its boundary slightly. Click OK when you’re finished.<\/p>\n

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4. Now you should have a precise selection, and are ready to create your\u00a0layer mask. To add the layer mask to an adjustment layer, simply add the\u00a0type of adjustment layer you want from the Adjustments panel and the mask\u00a0will be created automatically! From this point any settings you create with\u00a0that specific adjustment, will not affect the areas shown in black.<\/p>\n

Note: to create a layer mask for a standard pixel layer, just highlight the\u00a0layer you want to use and from the bottom of the Layer’s panel click the\u00a0“Add Layer Mask” button (third from left). Simple!<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Dan Moughamian is an experienced photographer and educator, and has worked
\nwith Adobe Photoshop since the early 1990s. He also has extensive
\nexperience with Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, plugins from Nik
\nsoftware, and many other digital imaging products. As a long-time member
\nof their testing programs, Dan has collaborated with Adobe Systems to help
\nenhance many of the core functions in Photoshop, Lightroom, and Elements.<\/p>\n

As an educator, Dan’s focus is to help photographers at all levels get the
\nmost from their digital workflows. Tips on raw editing, layer masking,
\nalpha channels, image adjustments, HDR photography, focus and lighting
\neffects, and perspective correction, are just a few examples of the topics
\nhe covers. To learn more, you can visit\u00a0Colortrails.com<\/a>,\u00a0and follow Dan on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0and on\u00a0Google Plus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He is the Author of\u00a0Adobe Digital Imaging HOW-TOs- 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3 and Camera RAW 6<\/a>, and his work has been also been published in Photoshop User Magazine and Photo Techniques Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Digital Imaging Tips by Dan Moughamian One of the most important techniques you can learn in Photoshop is the\u00a0ability to mask your layers. This allows you to isolate changes to specific\u00a0areas, while leaving others unaffected or only partially affected. There are\u00a0many ways to create layer masks (as many ways as there are to create\u00a0selections) but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278,251],"tags":[70,65,72,522,149,68,74],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danbaileyphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}