Photoshop 101: Layer Masks
Happy Friday everyone!
This week we are going to take a look at layer masks. These are important as they are an essential building block for any type of composition that you will ever make. It is through masks that you are able to do some of the advanced blends and other type stuff. Below you can get a sense of what we’re trying to accomplish.
Without any further ado, lets get started!
Here we have our initial photo. It is an image I made of an old truck during a parade, just for this purpose!
Click on the photo to download the full-size version so that you can work alongside me in the tutorial.
(Note: This photo is distributed for educational purposes only. You are not allowed to redistribute it in any way nor use it for any commercial or personal projects.)
The first thing we’re going to do is duplicate the background layer. There are several ways to accomplish this, for now, just drag the layer over top of the New Layer icon beneath it.
After you’ve duplicated the background layer, go ahead and fill the original background with White. Press [D] to set your colors back to default, then press [Alt][Delete] (PC: [Alt][Backspace]) to fill the layer with your background color.
With the top layer selected, click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the layers panel (it’s the third from the left). You won’t notice any change to the image because it creates a mask that is completely empty (filled with white).
With the layer mask selected, and black as your foreground color, go ahead and start painting on the image with the Brush Tool (B). You’ll notice that the layer will begin to disappear, showing through to whatever is beneath it in the layers panel.
If you lower the opacity of the brush you’ll see that you being to produce a transparency. If black conceals and white reveals, any shade of gray in between is only going to partially conceal the layer.
Using the Gradient Tool (G) produces a nice soft transition from transparent to opaque. This is very useful when trying to mask shadows or reflections.
Go ahead and fill the mask with white once again. If you’ve forgotten, [Alt][Delete] (PC: [Alt][Backspace]) will fill a layer with your background color).
Using your favorite selection method, go ahead and make a selection of the truck. Press [Cmd][Shift][I] (PC: [Control][Shift][I]) to invert the selection so that you have everything EXCEPT the truck selected. With your mask selected, and black as your foreground color, press [Cmd][Delete] (PC: [Control][Backspace]) to fill the selected area with black.
Zoom in and use the Brush Tool (B) or the Smudge Tool (R) to clean up your mask.
To finish this image off, lets create a shadow beneath the truck. First, make a new layer underneath our masked layer. Using the Lasso Tool (L), draw a rough shape underneath the wheels of the truck. Fill this selection with black.
Blur the layer by going up to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. In this example I used a ~6px blur.
If you want to get really fancy, add a layer mask to the shadow and paint out some areas to make it more natural. I also have reduced the opacity of the layer to 45%.
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