Photoshop Profiling Mask

The first time I learned Photoshop, the part of the mask did not understand, then always feel that the concept of the mask is very abstract, although following the book did a lot of practice, but in their own application process, but do not know how to take advantage of this function in Photoshop. Looking at the names of the alpha channel, I was overwhelmed. But on a few occasions, I found in the process of doing the map I want to modify a part of the image, but if it is selected after each time, very troublesome, and can not get the desired results. At this time I thought of the book before I have seen this situation can be used to solve the mask, so I moved out of Photoshop, get into the master of such textbooks, began my second time, the third study. Finally, there are some reasons to share with you here.

What is a mask

First of all, we must understand the concept of the mask. We often want to decorate only one area of an image during the creation process. In general, we can select the local image, create a selection after the next step, but we know that every time the established selection will be lost in the next selection, it is all over! So adobe Design members have designed this electronic shield mask for Photoshop. This technique allows the user to save an established selection as a masking mask to a new additional channel (such as an alpha channel). Then we can go into the Channel Channel tab, arbitrarily manipulate the new additional channel, using more mask channels, we can arbitrarily in a few different selection between the arbitrary switch, and then you do not have to worry about it.

The use of masks is much more than simply switching between constituencies. We can even add, subtract, and overlap the various constituencies through it. This shows that the mask is a very important part of Photoshop, only a certain understanding of it, our work can be more flexible, the production of the image will be more colorful.

Using masks

Let's start with a simple quick mask. Let's open a picture and create an elliptical selection in the image.

A-switch to fast mask State mode

B-Switch to normal state mode

Figure I figure II

Red, (we can double-click the Quick Mask toggle button to enter the options panel for advanced settings, no longer introduced here.) At the same time, we see in the channel panel automatically generated a new channel, Quick Mask channel, where the white ellipse is the representative of our established elliptical selection, unprotected area. In this white area we can modify it at will, without fear of affecting the black Area (protection Area). Then, when we press the B button again, the modified white area is changed back to the selection. (Note: The selection at this time may not be elliptical because of previous modifications, see the following example.) We first create a box selection and then create a quick mask channel, at which point we see the effect as shown in figure one, where the red is a translucent mask. Then we use the type tool to write the leaves in the rectangular box, and then we point back to normal mode. Now we see that the selection is no longer a rectangular box, but rather that the previously written leaf is subtracted from the rectangular selection. Any form of selection in Photoshop can be saved, whether it was created in the Quick mask mode or created with a different tool and text selection tool. In a selection-determined state, you can save a selection by executing the select/save selection command.

Let's take a look at what's in Save Selection: Document (file): This is the name of the image file that created the selection, and we can pull out the menu and see a new option in addition to the name of the image file that created the selection. That is, we use this option to determine whether the current selection is to be deposited in a new file, or simply to deposit this file to create a new channel. In operation (operations) are very intuitive options: New Channel (set up a novel channel), add to Channel (added to channel), subtract from Channel (subtract from channel); Intersect with Channel (intersects the original channel). Now let's use an example to deepen our understanding of the basic application of the mask.

Example: Draw a three-color diagram

This is a very typical example, we can see in many reference books.

1 Create a white bit background, RGB color mode of the new file.

2 Use the Ellipse tool, hold down the SHIFT key while pulling out a round selection.

3 Execute Select/save Selection, store it as new, and rename it "Red" (Photoshop will automatically name it Alpha).

4 Keep the selection and move it a little distance (note that you want to intersect with the original selection), and then repeat step three to name it "green."

5 continues to select the move, at which point we can click on the eye in the channel panel to make it easy to observe, making the three selections form the glyphs shown in Figure 1. and name the new channel "Blue".

6 Execute windows/show swatches, display palette, here we only use the first six colors. Executes the select/load Selection, loads the red channel, and replaces the foreground color with the first red on the palette. and then fill.

7 successively fill green and blue. Get the results as shown in Fig.

8) Cancel the selection, mount the red again, then select/load selection into the green, but note that at this time no longer select new, but select intersect with Channel, get the red-green intersection, fill the palette red and green between the yellow.

9) Fill in the same red-blue magenta and green-blue intersection of the cyan. Results See figure Three

Figure I figure II

Figure three Figure Four

10 at the end of the three selection, select the intersection of three colors. and fill in white, or press Del to delete. The final three primary colors are shown in Figure four.