I've often seen posts on here about layer masks and the confusion that surrounds them particulalry for photographers new to digital editing and Photoshop and I remember when I first started I just couldn't get my head around what people meant so I decided to put together this quick tutorial as an introduction to layer masks.
Open your image and press CTRL + J to duplicate. For this tutorial I am using a layer mask to make a selective colour image from the original but you can use this method to blend two exposures, e.g. a landscape where you need to get the right balance, obviously you will need to make your exposure adjustments and have both images in the same layer stack (drag one on top of the other whilst holding down the shift key will ensure perfect alignment). See Image 1 for your starting point.
Image 1
In the second image you need to:
1.Desaturate Layer 1
2.Click on the Layer mask icon
3.Ensure your foreground colour is set to black (I've made it red in this instance to show which is the foreground colour)
4.Select your brush
Image 2
Now for the good part, we are going to bring back the colour using the brush. In simple terms what you are doing is bringing back what is underneath, I could make it more technical but as this is aimed at first time users of layer masks I'll keep it easy.
As you can see I've had a quick go with the brush and the picture is starting to pop now. Unfortunately I've been a bit sloppy in places and we will cover this in the next section.
Image 3
In this fourth image you can see at #1 where I have painted back the colour section of the horse and rider but as I said in the last section I have made a mistake and re-introduced some of the green foliage in the background. The beauty of using this method as opposed to the Eraser tool is that you can switch back and forth to rectify any mistakes.
At #2 I want to change the brush size and hardness/softness so I will use the sliders for this. A quick tip for when you are editing is to use the [ and ] keys on your keyboard to change to size of the brush, this will speed up your workflow.
Beofre I want to get rid of the green parts I have to click on the lttle arrow at #3, this changes the foreground colour to white and 'paints back' the mono layer of the image.
Image 4
Image #5 shows how this has been achieved and the mono section has been restored. Now just go round the image tidying it up, remember to vary your brush size, hardness and opacity to get the effect you want as well as switching the foreground colours between black and white for what you want to do.
Image 5
Once you are happy with your edit you need to flatten the image and do whatever else is required, here I have added a frame and saved for web.
Image 6
Some useful layer mask shortcut keys are:
"B" selects the brush tool
"D" resets the foreground to black and the background to white, ideal for painting on a mask
"X" to switch between the current foreground and background colours
I hope this introduction is of use and the possibilities are endless once you start playing around.
