How to Use Alpha Lock, Clipping Mask & Layer Mask in Procreate - Procreate Tips

hello everyone welcome back to another mini tutorial video here on procreate for today's video we're actually going to talk about the differences between a flock clipping mask and layer mask so I finally want to show you guys in one video the differences between all three and what are the best case scenarios for each one of these tools for that we're actually going to be using this element here this leaf and I'm gonna show you how to properly use all three of these tools so let's just start with the first one which is alpha lock when is actually best to use alpha lock so let's just imagine that we have the sleeve and we're adding some texture to it we're adding some some shadows some light and shadows well just taking a look here at this file that I've prepared for you we have the leaf element as one layer we have the background as a separate layer so then we will just click on the leaf layer and select a flock as we click and select that option we see now the the alpha kind of background the famous background that we see on a Photoshop file for example once we start a new file and delete all of the layers we're usually given this checkerboard kind of texture and that means that this layer has now unlocked alpha here appropriate so now just using a brush I'm gonna be using a nice brush and a tone just a little bit darker than this leaf and now I can just draw I'm just gonna increase the brush size here I can just draw I'm going to increase it a little bit more some shadows to this leaf and because this layer is set to alpha lock I don't really have to worry too much about painting anywhere that's outside of the leaf because appropriate is actually understanding that what we want is to actually get the Alpha of the leaf and set it as the boundaries as the mask so basically the advantage of our flock is to be able to draw freely don't have to worry too much about where you're actually drawing on the outside of the boundaries of your layer but the disadvantage and I would even say a bigger disadvantage of alpha lock is that we're drawing shadows anything that you do here if we were to now draw some highlights we would be drawing in an all-in-one layer so we don't really have a breakdown of layers here and any changes if there's any feedback or any changes if you're doing this as a freelance work for a client actually starts to become a little bit more painful like say he actually wants to get rid of some of these lines now you got shading on top of that and you basically you're basically gonna have to redo this whole element here if you have everything merged in one layer so as quick as it is to actually use alpha lock it comes with a big disadvantage if you need to make any changes down the road so let's just undo that and let me just show you how can we achieve the same thing in a different way so once again alpha lock is really quick it's it's a really quick solution when you're drawing everything in in one layer so we're going to click on this layer we're going to deselect or we're going to turn off alpha lock for this layer now we're going to create a new layer click on the on our new layer and set it to clipping mask so what is clipping mask clipping mask is a tool where any layers that that are created on top of our base layer and set a clipping mask they will actually obey the parent so if I what I mean by that is making another layer here and if I set it to also clipping mask and making another one setting to clipping mask we see all of these little arrows pointing down in a chain reaction to the base layer so that means that all these three layers will all respect the boundaries the Alpha boundaries of our our parent layer so now if we go back into the brush and just paint those same shadows that same idea we now have the these shadows as a separate layer that is much better and that's what I call non-destructive work and there is a video that actually just talked about a little bit of these principles especially the principle of creating non-destructive work and towards like your if you in your career as a freelancer it's going to be very very important and actually as much as professional even to say that using non-destructive work is one of the best ways to actually move forward as you're doing work for clients because if they are if there are any changes such as like please take off the shadows please change the color of the layer the base layer it's going to be much easier if you don't have everything merged into one layer so let's just make another create another color here this is going to be white and I'm gonna use a similar brush and now in another layer I'm just gonna draw a little bit of highlights here so once again it is so much easier now to just decide if we want to have these highlights or if we want to have these shadows or not it all becomes much easier because it's all non-destructive kind of work because we're using clipping masks so now let me show you the last last thing to do here which is the layer mask when do we use it and why do we use it say now for example that this is some freelance work and the client has now requested for you to add a little variation here to the leaf so the Leafs looking maybe too sharp is looking too perfect and we need to add some some parts where it's a little bit broken so one way to go about it we have to click on our base layer we would use then on an eraser brush and I'm just gonna set the brush a little bit bigger here and we would have to like maybe do something like this this is a very like crude example of just making this leaf a little bit more interesting however by doing this we're actually creating destructive work once again because we are actually deleting pixels from our base layer so what is the best way to actually do that well I'm just gonna do that and now if I go back into the layers panel click on our base layer and select mask that is a layer mask and now layer mask works with tones of white with the range of white all the way to the black so meaning that if you stop in the in the green area and the gray area sorry and if you use the same brush and you start to paint parts off this you don't use actually the eraser you actually use now deep so I'm just gonna set back into the studio pan and more of a larger kind of brush size as you can see because we're using grey it's only removing 50% or so from the base layer or when I say removing actually should mean obscuring because that's what layer mask is actually doing it's not the leading anything but rather obscuring as you can see if I turn off my layer mask we see that the whole leaf actually comes back so when you're actually working with layer mask is actually you know may there may be a case where you're using or you should be using gray values but basically we should be using either a pure black in order to obscure completely obscure objects or areas or pure white in order to reveal areas so let's go back into the black value and make sure we're we are using a studio pen and now if I go and I do the same thing here that we did before with an eraser now you can see that I do have the same effect and going back into the layers panel and turning off layer mask I still have my whole leaf in the case there's any changes for example oh can you please bring this back I actually don't want to see a leaf that has that many parts that are obscured so you can bring this one back you can bring this one back and all of a sudden again it becomes much easier you're gonna have your object ready to go the changes are gonna be faster for you to redeliver files and deliver things upon feedback and client notes so once again working in a non-destructive way is a very very important way and professional as well to actually work in digital illustration so I hope that this actually clears out for you guys in terms of what are the three different ways and how to actually best use make use for those tools in procreate whenever we're working with alpha lock or clipping masks and finally layer masks so I hope this really clears out so that's it for this video guys I hope you guys enjoyed and if you did a like would be super appreciated as well as make sure to hit the subscribe button down below for more news tips and tricks reviews and speed bank videos and that is all for you to become a better illustrator thank you so much for watching and I'll see you guys on the next one ciao

Channel: Ghost Paper

Views: 774,136

Keywords: how to use layer mask procreate, alpha lock procreate, procreate tips and tricks, procreate tricks, procreate tips and tricks 2020, tips and tricks for procreate, procreate top tips, layer mask, procreate for begginers, tips for procreate, procreate beginner tips, best procreate tips, how to procreate ipad, layer, mask, procreate, ipad pro, how to make masks in procreate, procreate mask, procreate mask vs clipping mask, clipping mask vs alpha lock, clipping mask vs layer mask

Id: jZNXg_2fU5Q

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019