Photoshop Layer Masking Tutorial

A layer mask is an incredible feature in Photoshop. A Lot of Graphics designers find it a must in their daily usage. A layer mask is the combination of Layer and Mask. And a mask is applied on the top of a layer. Just imagine what a real mask does. Everything behind the mask is not visible and everything else is visible.Here I’m going to show you a tutorial on Layer masking you are going to be happy with. With layer masking technique you will learn how to blend two or more images in Photoshop. This is also called collage masking in PS term.

Let’s start.

1. Take two images from your stock photos and open them in Photoshop.

2. Use move tool to grab one image and drag it on top of the other until it is placed on that. It will create a new layer like I’ve shown in the picture.

3. Now click on the bottom of the layer palette to create a layer mask on the upper layer. This will be noticed by adding a white new squire with black line outside its edge to make sure that it is selected.

4. We now have a layer mask. I n this example we are going to use a Gradient. You can use brushes, paint bucket in a layer mask. Let’s grab the gradient tool (G) with black foreground and white background color. Then we have to make sure to set it black and white from the gradient tool option bar above. Any of the other color won’t work as they don’t match with the result. And I’ve set it to linear, mode normal and opacity is 100.

5. As the layer mask is selected, just drag the gradient tool across the upper image. Don’t make it too long because you will lower the opacity of the image. You can see the gradient you have just made as a thumbnail next to the layer.

6. This has given us a very nice blend, huh? The both images top & the bottom are now nicely blended. You can undo the blend and layer mask by going layer mask thumbnail and disable it or may delete. You can also drag the gradient from middle to get more from the left or lower image.

So layer masking is a very handy tool to use in this case. The mask is composed of black and white areas and this simply says whether parts (pixels) are visible or not. Any part of the mask what is white determine what is shown and black determines what is not shown.

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