Lesson Info
12. Useful Shortcuts with Masks
Lessons
Class Introduction
03:50 2Why Not Erase or Delete?
05:27 3Add a Mask
07:13 4Make a Mask From a Selection
04:18 5Select & Mask
07:33 6Automatic Masks
06:21 7The Magic of Overlay
09:39 8Mask with Paste Into
10:31Lesson Info
Useful Shortcuts with Masks
first example, I'm just gonna make a selection and click on the add layer mass button. As we know now it will make a mask based on that selection. If at any point you're have been doing some work and you're looking at that little teeny tiny thumbnail, which shows you the rest of the photograph, but you want to remind yourself, Wait a minute, What it looked like before I had the layer mask. If you hold on the shift key and click once on the mask thumbnail, it temporarily hides it. So if you ever see a document looks like that, it means there's a mask there. But it's not currently active, so this could be a really good way. Sometimes you're trying to remind yourself where my at So clicking on the shit key. This is like a toggle switch on and off. Okay, when were painting on a mask? We now know we need to worry about black, white and shades of grey. So to do that, here's what I would look at right now. I look at my tool settings is set to normal 100% so if I paint with black, it's gonna h...
ide that part of the layer. If I'm doing that and oops, I go too far, I need to paint with white. So instead of leaving what I'm doing if you tap the letter X, it swaps the color between black and white. So now I can go. I want white hoops on too far any black. So it's just a matter of hitting that key. Swaps back and forth just like this. So this could be really useful. If you're doing, it's now another tip for you, which is sort of related to this is I used to be guilty of this where I'd be painting a mask and I'd have one enormously long brushstroke that I just kept going. And if I made a mistake at the end, has to undo the whole thing. Was fair to go paint, paint, paint, paint paint in little tiny strokes, because then, if you make a mistake, you're on doing that last little bit. Not the last thing you just paint very careful like this enormously long snake of a paintbrush, and that applies to almost any tool that has ah painting function. To me, it makes better sense to do short little strokes and get closer in that way, if you make a mistake, it's just that last little one. If I'm painting somewhere and I decide, I think this might look better if I change the opacity. In other words, at a painting with black, I want to paint with, say, 80% black. Well, my paint brushes down here. I don't want to really want to leave where I'm at to go up to the options bar and change the opacity from 100 to 8. So there's a really cool shortcut. You just tap the first number of the opacity you want. So you want 80? Just go eight. Now it's 80% opacity. I want 40%. So on the fly I can change to any level low. Pass it without going back up to that pink brush setting to change on the fly. Now, if for some reason you wanted but if you did, you have to go 53 because he went 53 really solely be 50 if you ever want to go back to 100 0 which is odd, but that's just the way it is because one is 10%. So they had to have something. So zero is actually 100%. So if he ever decided, wanted to get 100% black. Just tap letter zero. There's one other one that I use a lot. It's a little more complicated, but once you fall in love with overlay mode and see how beautiful it is for a lot of stuff, you still have to sometimes switch between overlay and normal because you don't wanna be an overlay all the time. So this one's a little more unusual. It's on the Macintosh. It would be, um, let me have to do it to make sure I do it right. Option shift. Oh, for overlay. So on the Mac. Sorry, PC Ault shift Ofer overlay all shift or option ship and for normal. So just member Oh, for overly and for normal. And again, all that means is if you're in the creative flow and you're painting, you don't have to leave where you're at just to go up and change the setting and come right back to the same place. So these last couple of short dusters means you can really focus on what you're doing the other one that I use all the time is the bracket keys. Make your brush bigger or smaller, so if you decide you need some a small little brush, you just keep tapping the left bracket to make a smaller right bracket to make it bigger. Thanks question. Just a comment about the sizing. It's screwed me up for the longest time that I'd see just a little cross here and there. And then once I realized that I had the caps lock on, and so then I could scare my brush up it down. So I heard a terrifying story a while back where someone and this is before, like Facebook groups and things where people could ask questions. Some guy told me that he said, I know what happened, but whatever I did to my brushes, it was always across hair and before I got a chance, say, Caps lock, he said. But after I reinstalled photo shop, it fixed it, and I was just like, Oh my goodness, that's just like caps lock key. I think that's become a more commonly known thing. But apparently that poor guy had not heard that I just had this vision of someone un installing and reinstalling photo shop instead of just going look caps lock key, I noticed that he seemed to prefer a passage to flow. Can you explain to us why that's It's just opacity is a simpler won t change because the flow is like how much paint is being applied, whereas opacity is a much clearer. Whatever the opacity amount just means semi see through. And that's what I'm painting on a mask. If I was painting on a layer for some purpose, I would always painted 100% opacity and used the layer toe lower the percentage of see through this. But when I'm doing it on a mask, it just quicker to me to go. Now. There is another keyboard shortcut shift and the number if you prefer flow because it's just a personal preference shift and the number will change the flow the same way is just president number changes opacity. Thank you. Can you use the great Aunt Tool more than once on a single mask you can get? There's a little trick to it, though, because by default, if I take my radiant tool and do it once this way. And then once that whip, sir didn't work a little too far. And then once this way is gonna override the other one. Okay, so the trick is, it's ideal if you can to do it instead of black to white. Do black to transparent, because that way you can now do several different ways once or depending on the circumstance. If you change the blend mode of the great and tool to multiply, it'll kind of build on top of itself. Okay, next question. Can you briefly describe what multiply actually, does all of the blend modes air like these mathematical equations that says, Compare the layer on with the layer below? And it's this whole complicated thing. Have you ever looked it up? It's like if the base color is in the interpolation of the indicated is just like this whole complicated thing Multiply just says. It's like if you put two slides in a slide projector agency, both of them, that's kind of what's happening is so when you change the multiply mode, it's going to look at the underlying color and say Well, because the color you have, it's gonna make it so that there were blending them together and multiply motors by far not necessary, the best one to use each blend mode will have a different effect, depending on the combination of the colors you have in the layers and so on. And often it's a combination where you look, for example, to go back to multiply. In this case, I don't really like multiply, but maybe multiply at a lower percentage. Opacity might work. I mean, that's just another factor toe play with All right, can you show us an example of pasting onto a curved surface? For example, if you create a spread for the inside of a book, pacing onto a mock up with the page curved open, Um, well, let's see. I don't have anything. Probably not a layer mask. Beginners kind of question. Well, it's It's I mean, it isn't It isn't because ultimately would still end up being paste into a mask. But then, instead of when we did free transform before, actually probably do it this way. Hold on a second. Let's get out of that. I would probably end up. Imagine duplicating the layer, just doing one piece of it. This do this fast but okay, so when you do free transform, there is an option on Pier called the War Button, and this will allow you to kind of, you know, push and pull, which hopefully, if there was a curve in the page, you could kind of curve the photograph to match Cool. It's like the 32nd answer for something would take 10 minutes to drive. Actually, show sounds good last question, Fredrick asked. Could you also drag the new type layer below the original type player to get the same results or going back to talking about type, um, for the the order, the layers that has to be photo on top and type player below. So however you get there, that's the important thing, so it's easier to drag a layer down. It just it has to be photo on top type player immediately below
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
artmaltman
Dave Cross is a superb teacher and this is a superb class. Very clear explanations, well organized, and the demonstrations are spot on. I thought that I already understood masking but really I had just scratched the surface of the topic. Learned a lot of useful techniques. Thanks Dave!
Tony Walker
Enjoyed the course. Now that I am of an age where I tend to forget more than I remember having this course will help when I want to mask something. I can always come back to a specific video for a reminder. How many folks out there follow a tutorial and think great, then a week later you go back and say how on earth did I do that. Having access to this course is great especially if you are not photoshopping everyday.
a Creativelive Student
Dave is an amazing instructor and even though this is for beginners he takes you to intermediate. Amazing class learned and learned. Thank you!!!
Student Work
Related Classes
Adobe Photoshop