Layers and Layer Masks in Photoshop - Photoshop basics

working with layers and layer maths is pretty much the core of what makes Photoshop Photoshop and I know that it can be really intimidating to learn when you're first learning Photoshop so in this video we're gonna cover layers layer masks what they do how to work with them yadda yadda yadda let's jump into it okay so they're going to be two different types of layers that you can use or work with inside a Photoshop there are pixel layers and adjustment layers pixel layers like the name implies have pixels they're either an image or maybe it's a blank layer that you're painting and affecting on or you can have adjustment layers which are different types of adjustments that can be maybe a brightness contrast adjustment layer a curves adjustment layer a color adjustment of some kind those are typically going to be your adjustment layers now every layer that you add in Photoshop can also have a layer mask attached to it let me show you what I'm talking about here in my layers tab I have two different layers open here I've opened two different images up as layers and I did that from lightroom i just right-clicked and selected open as layers in Photoshop and then it opens these two layers up one on top of the other in the same file so on top here we have this darker version of the shot where I've actually underexposed the image that way I could retain the highlights around the Sun area and then the brighter version of the photo was taken with a slightly longer shutter speed where I liked the water boom movement better and we're gonna be using the foreground information from this image and blending it with the sky from this image so with any layer all you have to do is with that layer selected I just clicked on this top layer you go down to this icon here this is the add layer mask icon you're going to remember it by the rectangle with the little circle inside when I click on that it's going to add this white rectangle here this is a layer mask so now the way layer masks work is white reveals black conceals so white reveals the layer that it's attached to and black hides the lair it's attached to now by default it comes in as white but if I was to grab a paintbrush select black and then paint on this foreground look what happens it starts to reveal what is underneath the layer underneath our darker layer which in turn blends these two shots together if I turn this darker sky in the jaw if you can see what's happening we're just blending in that darker sky with our brighter foreground if I hold down alt or option and click on this layer mask it shows us exactly what we've done you can see white is revealing this darker image and black is concealing or hiding it now let's delete this layer mask the way I prefer to work just because it's the way my brain works I want to add in the sky from this particular image rather than remove the foreground from it I mean it's tomato tomahto it's whatever you're most comfortable with but the way I prefer to work is I will create that layer mask just like we did before but then I will invert it which means that it's going to fill that layer mask with black which means that this layer will be hidden you do that by going ctrl or command I and now you can see this what switched the whole thing to black now this dark layer is completely hidden now I'm gonna do the exact opposite of what we did before I'm gonna grab a white paintbrush 100% opacity with my brush and now I'm going to add the sky in because white is revealing this darker version of our shot so as I paint over our horizon line there you can see we've revealed this darker sky thus blending these two shots together so now let me show you another version of a pixel layer if we go down to this icon here this is the add new layer or create new layer icon when I click on that it creates a new layer but it's a blank pixel layer meaning there's it is a pixel layer but there's nothing on it yet now the most common use for these layers for me anyways I like to use these for my dodging and burning layers so right now if I was just to take a paintbrush at a low opacity and start painting on it I'm literally just painting paint just like a spray can over the top of our image but we don't want to do that what we want to do is change the way that that paint is going to interact with what's underneath it so if we change the blend mode which is right here right now it's set to normal if we change the blend mode of this particular layer to soft light and then do the same thing and start to paint over this becomes a dodging and burning layer so if I have a bright color it's going to brighten if I have a dark color it's going to darken plus we can add as much or as little saturation into that color as we want so if we want to add a daylight type hue to the image we can do that by painting this kind of orangie peach color or if we want to darken maybe parts of the sky we could grab a dark blue like so and then paint this over the top parts of the image and that's going to deepen and darken the darker tones so this is a pixel type layer and just like anything else if we wanted to we could add a layer mask to this layer as well just by going down to the add new layer mask button clicking on it and now we've got a layer mask here so let's say that I don't like what I've done in my sky I could hide some of that by switching it over to black changing the opacity of my brush to say 50% and then as I paint it over the sky it's just going to start to hide a little bit of what I've done so if I hold down alt or option click on my layer mask you can see that we're concealing some but not all of that adjustment that I did so now when I turn this eyeball off and on this is off this is on this is off this is on you see that we still have a little bit of the effect in my sky but not as much as we did so this is a way that you can make a pixel layer also a local adjustment by using layer masks so let's talk about adjustment layers now so looking at this image let's start off with a very basic adjustment let's just go down to our little type symbol here this is where all of our adjustment layers are going to be if we go up to brightness contrast that's going to create this layer here this is exactly what it sounds like it's a brightness contrast adjustment layer but you'll see it's also got a layer mask attached to it so the way that you can use these is first of all as we adjust this it's going to affect the whole image globally so what we can do is we can make an adjustment with a particular part of the image in mind and then we can use the layer mask to add that adjustment only to the part of the photo that we want it to affect in this adjustment I'm just looking at the sky thinking about I want it darkened down this guy add a little bit of contrast to it and kind of even out the tonality between the foreground and the sky so obviously this is over darkening the majority of the shot but we only want to add this into the sky so we're gonna click on our layer mask make sure that's selected and make sure it's highlighted here with a little square around it like this and we're gonna hold down ctrl or command and then hit I and that's going to fill that layer mask with black that means that this adjustment right now is being hidden it's not revealed anywhere now we can grab our paintbrush make sure that white is selected with 50% opacity I'll start at the top of the image and start painting it down and because we're painting at 50% opacity it's going to take multiple passes to bring in the full power of that adjustment I'm using the fairly large but I'm also using a soft brush by moving the hardness all the way to the left that way we're getting a nice feathering effect so now if I turn this off and on you can see we've darkened that sky if I hold down alt or option and click on the layer mask you can see exactly what that layer mask is looking like and remember white reveals black conceals this darkening effect is being revealed only in the sky let's see what other kind of adjustment layers we have available to us one of my favorites is levels levels is just a very simple way of adding contrast so when I look at this shot I'd like to see what the majority of the foreground looks like with highlights that are brighter but while leaving the darker tones alone that way we're increasing the contrast in the foreground but we're not necessarily just brightening the whole thing so what we want to do is I'm gonna grab the right slider and move this to the left and then I'm gonna grab the middle slider the mid-tone slider and move it to the right we'll just keep moving those two towards each other and you see that we're starting to get a lot more separation a lot more contrast between the highlights and the water definitely the highlights and the ice so we're leaving the darker shadows alone I can always hit the eyeball next to this layer right here and turn this off and on off and on and it gives me a feel for what we're doing and you know there's places where it might be a little bit too much but as we're painting on our layer mask I don't have to bring the entirety of this effect in everywhere I can just paint it in to taste so that's the nice part of this is that you know we can start off with a really heavy adjustment but then just bring in some of it and only bring it in in the areas that it looks good so let's hide this by hitting our arrows here and now we're going to start from scratch so I'm going to invert this layer mask by going controller command I boom and now with a 50% opacity brush I'm just going to start painting this over our foreground here I'm going to be careful not to go into the sky too much because as I go into that sky it's going to brighten the sky as well and it'll create some weird halos so if I was to accidentally go into our sky like so what I can do is I can either undo that by going ctrl or command Z let's say if we did it again I can switch over to a black paintbrush and I can hide where accidentally went into the sky too much get rid of that bright highlight that was being created there switched back to white do a few more clicks here and then afterwards do a before and after by turning on and off that paint brush of that eyeball seeing that I created a bit of a halo up above here so I'm going to switch back to black and try to let that little halo that we created this is the beauty of layer masses that we can always go back and if we decide that this whole adjustment is overdone another cool thing that you can do with layers and layer masks or layers I guess is you can decrease the opacity of this layer so rather than going back and like trying to decrease the amount of the adjustment we did we can just grab this opacity slider right here and with this layer selected if I drag this to the left is slowly going to fade out that adjustment so I can bring it in to taste we can keep going with this let's say we want to darken the top portion of the photo just a little bit more let's go down here and maybe let's try a curves adjustment layer and I'm just gonna grab the curve drag it down a little bit like so we're gonna invert that layer mask controller command I if I repeat myself enough times you guys will remember it controller command I grab a paintbrush let's go 100% opacity we're gonna paint with white and then we're just going to hit the top portion of the photo it's just going to add a little bit more darkness and mood to the top portion here and you can just keep going on and on and on with this so this is just a quick introduction to layers and layer masks remember that you have pixel layers which are either going to be an image or maybe it's going to be a blank layer where you're painting paint onto or you're gonna have an adjustment layer adjustment layers are things like brightness contrast contrast you can do color adjustments hue saturation adjustments black-and-white adjustments lots of different adjustment layers are available to you and then the most powerful part of it all is using the layer mask to make sure that that adjustment or that pixel layer only goes into the area that you want it to go remember with layer masks that white reveals black conceals and you don't have to bring it in 100% or 0% you can just fade it in with just a slightly lower opacity brush of some kind and then you can always decrease the opacity of those layers to really fine-tune the amount of the effect that you want hopefully this has been useful we've got lots more of these tutorials coming so stay tuned subscribe if you like this stuff and remember if you want to learn all of this you can go over to my website and I'll put a link in the description below and I've got a bunch of tutorials there alright we'll catch you guys in the next video [Music]

Channel: Nick Page

Views: 69,563

Keywords: photography, landscape photography, nick page, travel, photoshop, layer masks, layers, pixel layers, adjustment layers, post processing, tutorial, editing, adobe, how to

Id: 3GU-BDTGlcI

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 04 2019