Understanding Layer Masks in Photoshop | 🔴 LIVE REPLAY

so what are layer masks layer masks are nothing but they control the visibility what area is visible what area is not visible and that's pretty much it that pretty that's pretty much what layer masks cover for example here I have an image example is the best way to understand the thing alright so here I have an image of a bodybuilder and above that I have a texture image right now it's my audio right just let's go ahead and okay is the audio good okay so here I have an image of a bodybuilder and I have an image of the texture so I love the texture image so let's go ahead and decrease the opacity of the texture image now it's looking fine is looking awesome but you don't want the texture image on the person here's what you do you use layer masks so to create a layer mask click on this layer mask icon the icon is just like a rectangle inside it there's a circle just click on that icon and this creates a layer mask now take the brush and fill the area that you want to make invisible black okay so take the brush make sure the foreground color is black and the areas that you paint with black those areas disappear right just like this have a look those areas just disappear have a look so this is the before without the layer mask this is with the layer mask what's actually happening is if I go ahead and turn off this layer and if I increase the opacity of this one see this area this got erased off now some of you might ask why not erase it okay why not let's go ahead let's go back why not take the eraser and erase it that's pretty much the same right but here's the thing if you by mistake if you exceed the limits for example if you did just that there is no way of getting this area back right its destructive once you erase it you raise it there's no information in the pixels when you do it with the masks its non-destructive so to remove an object or to make an object appear or disappear in particular areas of the image in a non-destructive way if you want to do that layer masks are the ones that you want to use so let's go back instead what you do in layer mask when you create a layer mask the area that you paint with black those areas disappear the area that you paint with white those areas appear so in this as you can see let me just change my thumbnail size so large thumbnails look at the thumbnail the areas that are painted in white those areas are visible the areas that are painted in black those areas are not visible is that clear to you if it's not let me know down in the comments below and if you just want to see the mask press an old altar option and click on it this shows you the mask if you want to go back to the image press and hold alt or option again click on this again okay so let's go ahead and take on the comments ah ok how to decrease the brush size or increase the brush size ok this is a shortcut that I learned a year ago and this is one of the best things that I've ever learned to speed up your workflow press and hold alt or option ok press and hold alt or option the right mouse button hold it and drag it to the right to make it bigger drag it to the left to make it smaller drag it up to make it soft drag it down to make it hard make sense all right now I would normally change the blend mode to maybe screen and do stuff and if you erase something extra and you want to get it back simple paint it with white jeans the foreground color to white and by the way the shortcut to change the foreground and the background color to toggle between them X is the key ok so X to toggle between background at the foreground color and then you paint back in the area that you want ok now this looks really amazing so if you go ahead and paint it so if you want this area to be erased as I told you black X paint over it and it's gone right so that's pretty much it about layer masks now let's get to some tips but before we get to some tips let's take some questions thank you thank you a lot of people watching I'm so happy to have you guys now let's talk about the first step the first if we're gonna be talking about is negative masking so I have a couple of examples this was example one so let's go ahead and open example two I have everything prepared for you guys so let's talk about negative masking so this is a picture and I want to have textured highlights on the walls to bring out the drama in the photo how to do that if you remember from my blend mode tutorial I talked about the blend mode which brightens things up so what was the blend mode which brightens things up screen right so all you have to do create any adjustment layer case so instead of making a copy of this you can create an adjustment layer any adjustment layer like levels okay and change the blend mode to scream this brightens up the whole thing now before I talk about layer masks let's talk about one more essential thing the essential thing is this so whenever you apply these blend modes for example you want to increase the contrast what we usually do maybe make a copy of this layer we change the blend mode to overlay and we increase the contrast that's what our workflow is but here's the deal if you make any changes to this one for example you erase this building off let's do that okay that's for example if you take the eraser or maybe you clone something out so let the patch tool you clone something out just like this but it's not totally gone why because if you make any changes to this you also have to make changes to the background layer and that's kind of a demerit of this so you need to be completely sure or use this method which I prefer which I suggest okay this method is the best instead of making a copy what you do you create any adjustment layer so levels or curves for that matter and don't make any changes in the properties of the adjustment clip and change the blend mode to overlay or anything you want it does pretty much the same thing it acts as a virtual copy of anything that's beneath it so that's better now you want to change it to screen but it brightens up the whole whole photo we want to brighten up certain areas of the photo here's what you need to do okay you have to change this mask into black okay to change this mask into complete black to invert this mask all you have to do so this was our second tip controller command I this creates a black mask now you can go ahead take the brush and paint the areas that you want to brighten with white for example this area you want to give a tinge here maybe a little bit of here maybe a little bit of bumps in here have a look how interesting this looks right now right interesting isn't it now have a look at it before enough so this is the before this is the after what if you want to bring out the texture even more here's what you need to do open up layer Styles dialog box how to do that double click on the right hand side of the layer or right click on it and choose blending options pretty much does the same thing do that now take the slider of the underlying layer from left to right so let's do that now as you can see this is quite harsh so what we want to do pressing alt or option click on it what is actually doing is that it's deleting the dark areas of the layer which is beneath it this which it calls underlying layer from this layer from the brightening layer so does it creates the texture so this is kind of hard so press and hold alt or option click on this this will break up the slider and then you can go ahead and smoothen it up just a little bit have a look isn't this amazing click OK if you're satisfied have a look before and after before after adds that extra oomph factor make a copy of it to increase the oomph of it and then control the opacity and there you go isn't this amazing also about creating negative masks here's what you can do if you are making a copy or if you are having an another layer of another image so here's what you need to do for example he had birds or something like that you had a different texture okay so I'm just making a copy of this in order to create a negative mask right out of the box here's what you need to do press and hold alt or option click on this mask button this creates a negative mask straight out of the box okay so before moving to the second tip let's take some questions all right brush britta I used to do the same I used to use the bracket keys but when I learned the mouse thing it really blew me off blew me on off I really need to work up my articles or grammar anyway link to the photos it's great to add texture cool link to the photos I'll link it up by the way every photos that I use I use it by using this vexos photoshop plugin and paxos usually has a list of photos that I personally like so I'll send you the link it will show you all the images that have ever used in my tutorials so go watch that link and you'll have all the images at one place which I have downloaded from bigpac sauce for my tutorials ok if you have any questions make sure you go ahead and ask them so any questions no ok let's move on so the second tip is mask view okay so let's open up example number 3 we don't want to save it open up mask view example number 3 there we go let's change it dark gray by the way to change the canvas color all you have to do right click on it and choose the canvas color you want medium gray light gray custom you can set a custom color so I'm going to choose dark gray choose anything which contrasts with the image if it's black don't choose black it'll be confused where are the boundaries so choose something which contrasts with this ok so let's go ahead and create a desaturated skin look I've already talked about this in my previous videos so but let's learn it up again so make two copies of the layer ok this is not a background layer so ctrl command J ctrl J command J twice now turn off this and just go to images adjustments and desaturate now what does desaturate do as the name suggests it D saturates takes away all the saturation now this alpha click on desaturate it take makes it black and white now turn this on and change the blend mode to either multiplying soft light overlay let's try soft light look at the skin isn't this amazing right now make a group of both of these to make a group of both of these Prez no controller command click on the second one and ctrl command G to make a group of both of these now let's decrease the opacity it's kind of too much I like the skin tone have a look at it before and after before and after but it affects all of the photo it affects his eye it affects the background we just wanted to affect the skin here's what you need to do you need to create a mask okay so instead of creating a white mask let's create a negative mask pressing or ultra option and click on this this creates a negative mask now let's go ahead take the brush and paint it with white paint this skin with white there we go isn't this fan TAS tick okay there we go just like that okay look at that maybe have a look at the before and after so before after more more dramatic look right if you want to make it even more dramatic you can change the blend mode of the inside layer to overlay to make it more dramatic it's totally upon you on what you want to do so let's soft light I want I kind of liked overlay okay have a look so this is the before after makes ton of difference now suppose you were painting through this and you missed a certain area just like this so here's the deal press and hold alt or option click on the mask and this helps you figure out which areas you missed so this was step number 3 tip number 3 is this if you want to see the mask press and hold alt or option click on that mask it will show you what you have done in the mask then you can go ahead and fill up the areas and get back to the image by pressing alt or option and clicking on this and back to the image so tip number three by the way tip number seven and tip number eight is my personal favorite is something I found out by using Photoshop for years and years so make sure you stay tuned and you don't want to miss it right it's about applying image with masks it will be fun it's not the one that I have created a video about something different you have a lot of fun okay so let's take some questions so hey andrew is messaging me let me just reply to him okay so there we go download pixel school it's great to add texture if you guys have any question guys ask it comment comment is Right empty there so write something guys alright so let's go ahead and move on to the second maybe the third the third example is something really fun not so much fun exactly but you'll love it so we'll open the fourth example but the third in my sequence okay there we go okay so here I have an image of a man let's turn it black let's make it medium gray of a man and here I have this so if you want to create double exposure simple he's varying black right so we're on a bright net so what's the blend mode which brightens up things screen let's change the blend mode to screen and there you have a kind of double exposure not that awesome let's go ahead and decrease the opacity to see how it looks looks pretty cool maybe you wanna use it with blend if and want to decrease the just like that what about darkening this to darken this create a levels adjustment let's go back to this blending options make it normal let's create a levels adjustment layer and click on the square white icon and choose levels and make the darkest area darkest make the darkest area completely black to do that it's simple click on this eyedropper tool and choose the darkest area it expands the dynamic range have a look it makes the darkest area completely black all you have to do choose this eyedropper tool click on the area that you think is the darkest in the image so now let's go ahead and try this now list this looks much better so let's go ahead and decrease the opacity to somewhere on this now this looks fine now you can go ahead and blending options and there just like this you can do something like this now it looks pretty much fine have a look so this is the one but it has actually gone to his mouth right so we want to add a mask okay take the brush paint it with black just like that right now the tip is this if you wanna see this is not looking so nice if you wanna see how it looks without the mask if you're confused as to what it looks better with or without the mask here's what you need to do press and hold shift and click on this this turns off the mask press and hold shift and click on this again this turns on the mask so that was tip number three okay so any questions let me go ahead and search see what questions you have I struggle masking around the hair do you have adjustment layers help yes you can take help of adjustment layers by the way watch my tutorial on how to select difficult edges that's on YouTube go ahead and watch that watch that where I explain when you cannot see the edge how to take advantage of adjustment layers to make a better selection so make sure you watch that okay when I use Alt + right mouse to change the brush size the red filling color doesn't appear at all how can I get it back please you you will have to go to the preferences are now der in the preferences there's something with the brush which you can change just go ahead and Google on just search on Google how to bring back the red and using the preferences so it's in the everything is in the preferences also there's one more thing about Oh similar thing about quickmask when you go ahead and select quick mask you double click on this there is thing masked area selected area you want to fill it with red how much of passively do you want there's a similar thing with brush in the Preferences menu so if you are using a Mac it's under Photoshop menu then preferences if you're using Photoshop it's edit and then preferences so in preferences appearance as brushes there are a lot of tons of stuff that you can it's very easy to do just go there if you're still unable to do it let me know ok now let's come to fourth tip so one of the what's the fourth tip so for fourth tip we got to move to example number five so it's kind of a number ahead but that's okay it's example number five the fourth tip is this for example this flower is beautiful right now what if you wanted to add an extra layer of color here how to do that well add a hue/saturation adjustment layer simple just check on cut okay just okay I just forgot you could not see anything there because there's my screen so click on colorize once you have clicked on colorize then you choose the color you want maybe blue or something like that well that's pretty much fine now we want only this area to appear blue so create a negative math controller command I and when you create an adjustment layer it comes with a white mask so you need to invert it there's no other way around there so you want an extra layer just like that I'm doing it really quickly okay something like that and if you painted extra paint it with black there you go done now if any time you want to change the colors double click on it and change the hue and you'll be able to change the colors for example you like this color it's pretty much good maybe I think I like purple now if you want to brighten up the same area so what you would do you would create a level curves adjustment layer and then brighten up but this brightens up the whole image would you go ahead and create the mask again no you have already created the mask we don't want to create the mask again here's what you need to do press and hold alt or option click and drag it and leave it to the curves replace layer mask of course yes we don't we want to replace so now it has the same identical mask as this one so this was the I think worth tip so copying mask replacing mask to make a copy of the mask alter option drag it and that's pretty much all you have to do now you can maybe increase the contrast do certain stuff like that have fun so on and so forth I hope that helped you now let's go ahead and move this is a sample of event tomorrow yes it is hi hi Andrew how you doing is it over what's a Lizette it's not over I'm going on so there's a hey is it it's not over is everything alright the network had some issues the network had some issues I guess is the video speed alright just let me know there's a technical issue there okay it seems to be alright right now okay it's fine so there was an Internet issue the network issue just dropped down in the middle so I don't know what's going wrong with my internet right now so it's back to normal speeds I guess so what we were talking about somebody asked actually what is the difference between negative mask and regular mask let's understand that negative mask and regular mask simple negative mask is a black mask regular mask is a white mask that's pretty much all it so if you want to create let me just and make you understand it again if you have doubts you have to have your fundamentals right in the beginning so if I was to create a layer say any layer make a copy of this layer and change it to say overlay and maybe soft light creating a negative mask maybe screen choosing something which is visible right so negative mask is nothing but a black mask which means nothing is visible and in that black mask you paint with white normal mask means the white mask in that mask you paint in black you raise the area that you don't want in negative mask you make the areas appear now you can change a negative mask into positive mask and positive mask into negative mask very easily if you just go ahead create a mask painted completely with black just like that it becomes a negative mask right it's taking some time but it's it will do the same have a look it creates a negative negative mask is not don't get confused negative mask is just a mask filled with black and that's pretty much all it in it okay you still have the down Britta says the issue I have is that the sound and the video is not always synchronized off and on its is it fine now actually Facebook has a little problem you know what YouTube never has a problem with sound never has a problem with lagging YouTube is my way to do live most of the time also even YouTube it has a feature where it allows you to see the chat and decide so that's why I love YouTube for live streams Facebook is great because a lot of my friends aren't like you are in Facebook so yes there's a trade-off there okay I understand it also happens with me the Facebook I have all these issues with Facebook but I hope Mark Zuckerberg does a thing or two it learned something from YouTube even though by the way Facebook is in competition with YouTube right now anyway move moving on to the fifth tip fifth tip is active selections to mosque okay let's move on to the fifth tip which means sixth example I have everything ready for you guys I just this afternoon I just sat and got everything ready this is a handsome guy what do you think ladies anyway so for example you have maybe a selection of him let's make a selection of him this blunt selection of this guy and just very rough selection I'm doing a very poor job here but you'll get the idea what I mean right okay so suppose this is the selection very rough quite rough just go ahead so we have the selection now now suppose let's create a curves adjustment layer now here's the fun part fun part is this with the selection active with any selection active if you create an adjustment layer any adjustment layer maybe curves it turns the selection into a mask the area that is selected it turns it white and the area that is not selected it turns it black which means the area that is selected it applies the effect just there now what if you want to brighten the left side of his body and leave the right side of his body and you have oh you already have spent hours and hours making the right selection maybe you were compositing our stuff so you brighten it up okay and maybe change the blend mode to luminosity do not affect the colors now maybe you increase the just a little bit like that now you want this effect just on the right-hand side of his body so if you go to the mask and this is the wrong way go to the mask and paint with black the right side of his body sorry the left side of it whatever the right side of his body if you erase it and you want the effect just on the left-hand side okay suppose he erased the right this side of his body and you wanted that effect here okay the problem here is if you want to get shine in this area back the selection is now gone you cannot get that back you have to manually paint in it will take a ton of time you know so it will spill and it will create problems so instead how about creating double masks now what are double masks you know that a group can have just one layer right excuse me a group can have just one layer and group can also have a mask are you understanding where I'm getting on with this so if we go ahead and create a group and create a mask for that group we still have this mask intact now if we go ahead and erase this area with black paint this area with black it's gone in this mask okay very nicely it's gone here's the fun part if I paint this area back on this will not spill why is it not spilling because I already have this mask here anything which I do here in this group mask is gonna happen only in the active selection of this mask in the active area of this mask did you understand the concept of double masks did you did you not so let me just make it really clear for you let's make it completely white okay to make you understand and now let's delete the mask of the group delete now suppose you want to erase the white from some areas of his body if you click on this mask paint these areas with black sorry black and you want to get some areas back just like that that's gone that fine selection is gone instead what we do create a group put that in that group create a mask of the group and then paint it with black anything that you do here even if you paint it but with white nothing will spill out this area isn't that interesting and this has a lot of users the possibilities are limitless okay so this is the trick of double masks right let's take on some questions if you have some right better now good for me in the u.s. mark are you listening who is Mark where is Mark anyway when I open Camera Raw it shows highlights as read it will show highlights as read let me just quickly solve it for you okay let me just solve it for you so if I go ahead open filter Camera Raw it should so show highlights as red which brings me to another tip I'm not sure whether I should give out the tip or not because that's for my next video because if I give out the tip right now you won't watch my next video so I'm not giving out the tip but let me talk about those red marks when you increase the highlights right let me do a little something when you increase the exposure maybe the highlights see this area's turned red which is a good sign and you should edit with these areas red now what is it saying it's saying that the marked areas are the red areas are so bright that they are losing details the marked areas are completely 100% white the pixels in the marked area they have RGB values as 255 255 and 255 which means it's completely white and when anything gets completely black or completely white there's no texture in it there's no details in it and to figure out which areas are getting completely bright Adobe has given this markers and this is called clipping clipping is when the signal any signal audio signal video signal emits signal videos image only goes beyond the dynamic range of the screen so screen has a particular range it can show right maybe seven units our eyes can see 14 units some cameras captured 12 units so cameras have more dynamic range than the screen can show but for it for to avail that you need to capture in raw so it shows you which areas are beyond the limits of the representation of the screen so the areas which are beyond the limit of which screen can represent so you need to bring down the highlights so much so where the red areas just disappear okay and when you decrease the blacks you'll see some areas go blue right these areas go blue so you have to increase drag so much so that the blue areas don't appear and if you don't want the red areas to appear all you have to do click on this it won't show click on this it won't show the dark blue areas so that's pretty much it hope that answers your question I'm gonna cancel that all right you guys have any other questions make sure you go ahead and ask that so a group multiple masks active selection two masks I have done that so let's move to example number seven in this example we're gonna be talking about applying image and this is really important guys do not miss it if you have watched up until now this is something new and you do not want to miss it alright in this one for example you created guys are you with me let me just go ahead and check the comments it's pretty much good all right now for example suppose we created something called a color lookup adjustment layer and we chose a filter for example late sunset now we kind of love this filter in the highlights but we don't like it in shadows or we don't like it in certain areas so all you have to do now this is the trick with the mask selected not this one with the mask selected go to image apply image now what that does is that it limits the effect just to the highlights have a look at the mosque it has created a mask of the RGB combined channel now if you want to try out other masks red now what it does it gives you the mask of the red Channel green it gives you mask of the green Channel blue it gives you mask of the blue Channel I kind of love the blue Channel click OK have a look before after so it gives a nice yellow tint to it you can also go ahead and include use this mask also in the curves you can also add a vibrance adjustment layer increase the vibrance just a little bit just like that and so on and so forth let me give you a few more examples so example number 8 and this is the last example hey I think this was the last example anyway no I do example number 8 so what if you want to bring out more details in the sky in this image I've already created the curves so let's go ahead and create a curse we decrease the value of curves right this darkens up the whole image but we want just the Blues to be affected you will go to image apply image make sure the mask is selected apply image if the mask is not selected apply image won't apply if this is selected apply image will be grayed out okay then you'll have confusion make sure mask is selected then go to image apply image now select the blue Channel simple see just the blue is darkened see the mask the blue Channel right click OK and there you have it now if you edit it just just these blue areas are affected isn't that interesting so that's pretty much it that's pretty much all the tricks I had to give about layer masks today

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 193,618

Keywords: piximperfect, layer mask in photoshop, photoshop tutorial for beginners, how to mask in photoshop, what is a mask in photoshop, photoshop tips and tricks, advanced masking

Id: pLVQecX4bkQ

Length: 35min 8sec (2108 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2017