Photoshop masks: for new users who are still asking what the masks are

"If you have a question, after asking an expert, your question may be changed from one question to three questions. Because the expert explains the problem in two ways: He may use two terms to explain the term you don't understand. The result is that the term you don't understand is changed from one to three ". -- Reference from a forum

I am a cainiao, and I am still super. I have been studying PS for a few months. I learned a little bit about it on the Internet. It is not formal or systematic. I encountered many difficulties in learning and knew the difficulties of understanding some knowledge points. I think someone on the Forum asked me about the mask. Today I want to talk about my understanding of the mask from the perspective of a cainiao. I want to make it popular, not to talk about theory, not to ask why, but to do it. (I secretly said: I don't know why ?)

The following is my personal understanding. It is neither a system theory nor a comprehensive introduction. I have not even pasted a sentence elsewhere. I am a hacker in the East, a hacker in the West, and where do I think, if you have any mistakes, please point out that it is too ridiculous to look at the food.

My Buddha bless, don't bring you into the ditch!

When I made a gossip, the book went back to the beginning.

We often say that there are actually several masks. I know four types of masks: Quick masks, layer masks, vector masks, and cut masks. The internal connection between them is ignored.

One by one.

Quick mask

I only use it to create a constituency and look at an example: in a lot of skin polishing tutorials, I want to leave the facial features of mm and only sharpen the facial skin. I will use this quick mask. Where is it? Here, press Q.

 

Next we will use it to select MM's facial skin, click the button, select the paint brush, the foreground color is black, paint the part you want to grind, and paint the area with a white paint brush, is it very convenient to apply it back and forth?

 

How is it red? Red is correct. The default value is red. Click the button on the left of the quick mask to exit the quick mask. Press Q.

 

When you see the selection area, don't worry. mask the mask. The red part is masked. It's not what we want. Just select it!

Copy it to see the effect.

 

Yeah! Selected! Why is it so blunt?

Now you need to make full use of it. Didn't you just use a paint brush? Then the paint brush function can be used here. Isn't it boundary? Then we can use a soft pen to use different transparency, you can even use various pattern brushes to brush out various pattern selection areas, and you can also feather it. In short, you must do better than mine.
 

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Layer Mask

A layer mask is the most commonly used tool for drawing. A mask usually refers to a layer mask (all the masks mentioned in this section refer to a layer mask ). It can be said that if you do not know the mask, you should not say that you have entered the PS threshold.

Why did I reference the phrase of an expert in the beginning? When I first came into contact with the mask, I read this tutorial and explained that in the layer mask, he didn't teach you how to use a paint brush, let you use the gradient, my mom! The mask is not clear yet, and there is another gradient. Today we will start with the most cainiao recognition.

A netizen said that the mask is like an eraser. Let's start from where it looks like an eraser.

1. Is the mask an eraser?

First, let's take a look at it. First, let's take a look: to see the effect, we open a landscape and a mm, mm on, and the landscape is under, and add a mask to the MM layer:

 

Click the button pointed by the arrow. A mask icon is displayed on the MM layer, and the icon is displayed as being edited. The current operation is performed on the mask.

Let's try to melt mm into the flowers: first, select a black paint brush and smear the hidden part. Is it the same as an eraser? Oh! It's passed! Not afraid. In this case, we select a white paint brush to paint the exposed part. In this way, we don't have to worry about passing through the border. You can also use a pen to paint the edge as naturally as possible, and use a low transparency to paint the effect as invisible.

 

So far, have we realized the difference between it and rubber?

In fact, the biggest difference between it and the rubber is that it only operates on the mask and does not cause any damage to the image. After the eraser, the pixels of the image have been erased. Therefore, if you are not satisfied with the mask, you can delete it without affecting the image.

The difference between the mask and the eraser is essentially that the mask is based on the constituency, and it has an internal connection with the channel. You just need to know how to use it.

To delete a mask, right-click the mask icon and the "delete mask" option appears. You can also drag the mask icon to the recycle bin.
 

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2. The mask is not an eraser

We already know that the mask is not an eraser, so it should be used for other purposes. Let's see how it can be used?

1. Gradient Melting

If you are not familiar with the gradient, I will advise you to study the gradient first.

People who often go to the Internet to find the PS tutorial must have seen this figure. After understanding the method we just used, it is not difficult to use the gradient.

 

Add a mask to the character layer, pull out the black and white gradient, hide the black part, and show the white part. The gray part is over-natural, this is an effect that we can't figure out by hand.

 

2. Local Adjustment of the adjustment layer

When we plot, we often only want to adjust some parts and create adjustment layers (the knowledge of adjustment layers is not involved here) to facilitate us, because the adjustment layer also links a mask, through the operation of the mask, the effect of the adjustment can be displayed or hidden as per our wishes, with more or less displayed. See:

 

All options in the adjustment layer indicated by the arrow are used to create a layer mask.

I was dizzy when I first saw these icons, but after I understood the masks, I looked at these icons again. They make us adjust the images as we like, the following is an example:

If I want to adjust the highlight of the MM face, but not the other part, I can create a curve adjustment layer and then use a black brush to wipe the MM face.

 

The other adjustment layer methods are the same and are no longer repeated.
 

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3. Other Local adjustments

A mask is created at the same time in the adjustment layer. Isn't it the same as applying a mask to the adjustment layer for local adjustment?

For example, partial color fading: if we want to make the effect of only one sunflower flower. First, copy a layer, remove the copy layer from the color, add a mask, and paint the sunflower.

 

Next, let's take the Topaz filter as an example to apply a filter locally. The topaz filter is a very popular filter. Many people on the Internet have "her"

I use this "she" here to show my love for it. I basically use it every time when polishing the skin. The so-called "no bad filter,

Only those who are not good at filtering ", run the question ...... The key to using Topaz is that we cannot see the trace of the application, so we can use a mask to hide what we don't want to show.

 
 

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4. Mask knowledge

Where can I think of it? It's a bit messy ......... -- Zhao Benshan

● Create a mask. Of course, you can create a mask in the menu;

● New Display All -- all are white masks. Show all. What we did just now is that it is also the default;

● New hidden all-all are black masks. Hide all. In the layer palette, press the Alt key to create a mask to hide all the masks. If you want to adjust a small part, create a black mask and use a white pen to paint the small part to be displayed, which is very convenient.

● All masks are created for the adjustment layer. To adjust a small part, you can fill the mask with black to hide all masks.

● You can operate on the mask or on the layer. However, you cannot click the mask icon or the layer icon to view their editing status.

● Press Ctrl to click the mask icon to obtain the selection area on the mask.

● You can use the non-white option in the image adjustment menu to adjust the mask, or you can use almost all the filters on the mask to make a variety of amazing effects.

● You can also paste the selected area in the channel to the mask.

● Press shift to click the mask icon to stop using the mask.

● Click the link button pointed by the arrow to unlink the mask from the layer. You can drag the mask or the layer to move it separately. This is required for animation. The animation below uses a mask.

 

● You can create a new selection area or load the stored selection area, and then create a mask. The created mask is the selection area shape. See:

 

● There are also off-the-shelf masking materials available on the Internet to make various effects.

 

● The Mask has an internal connection with the channel. If you don't mention it here, I can't say it too well ......

● Masks are also used in many other places, such as computing, which are in the fourth grade ......
 

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Vector mask

Of course, the vector is related to the path. When we mention the path, it will be big. A great man said: If the mask is the threshold for entering the PS, then the path is to step into the professional selection.

Hand threshold! (Secretly tell you that this great man is me.) I 've got another question ......

Vector mask: You can only perform path operations on the mask, and the paint brush cannot be used. You have prepared a pen. This pen is not fun. I have been playing well in my spare time.

What if you want to add a mask to the mask? The added version is a vector mask.

The operation of the vector mask is the same as that of the layer mask, but it is changed to a path. Others don't know ......

Cut mask

It is hard to understand how to cut the mask.

When creating a cut mask, there must be two layers. After creating a cut mask on the above layer, the above layer only displays the shape of the following layer. Use the following layer to cut the above layer, that is, the above layer only displays pixels within the range of the following layers. (A tongue twister ......)

The clipboard only affects the next layer.

Let's take a look at the actual operation: we also use this mm to fill a small square in the lower layer of the MM layer, and press the Alt key between the two layers to create a cut mask for the MM layer, of course, you can also create it in the menu. Look at the effect, drag the block layer, and then look at the effect.

 

There are a lot of applications that can be used to cut masks, so you can't elaborate on them. For example, you can modify the edges and perform some special effects on the edges. For example:

 

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