Selective Adjustments with Layer Masks

FLEW and a few others have asked me to explain layer masking. It was a concept that was difficult for me to grasp,
but a very valuable one once I understood the basics, so I'll give it a try. I'm not a Photoshop guru, so please excuse
my folksy approach.

Here's a photo of mother and child that needs adjustment to better display their beauty.

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A global levels adjustment, will work, but also brightens the background, which I'd rather avoid.

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One way around this is to create a duplicate layer [press ctrl + J], apply the global levels adjustment to the upper layer,
and then use an eraser to remove the parts of the top layer that didn't need brightening.

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The problem with this approach is, should you find you made an error, you might have to go back to the beginning and
start all over again. Fortunately, Photoshop offers a more forgiving and elegant solution... layer masking.

After you've created the duplicate layer and globally adjusted the levels, go to [layer - layer mask - hide all]. You''ll
see that a black square has been added to the icon for the top layer, and that the levels adjustment you made has
been hidden.

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Now set the foreground color to white, click on the black mask icon, and select the paintbrush tool. Wherever
you paint on your picture, you'll change the mask covering that portion of the image to white, letting the
levels adjustment show through.

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Oops! Now you see why I got a low grade in coloring in kindergarden.... I can't paint between the lines :?. Those lighter
colored blobs on the background are where I screwed up and painted white on parts of mask that should have been
left black. No problem! I'll just change the foreground color to black, and carefully paint back in black on those
portions of the mask.

View attachment 6299

This masking approach works on any change you'd like to make to the upper layer, including levels, sharpening,
hue/saturation, etc. For example, the amount of sharpness of this picture works well for the child, but isn't very
flattering to the mother's mature skin, so I created a duplicate layer, and applied 1 pixel of gaussian blur to
the picture. Then I used a hide-all layer mask, and painted white on the mask over areas where "character lines"
needed to be softened, leaving the rest of the image sharp.

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I can guarantee you that once you understand the concept, you'll find countless uses for layer masking.

Feel free to download the original image and work through the steps I've outlined. If you run into any problems, I'll
be happy to explain the process in more detail.

 

Re: Thanks Frank

That's kind of you to say, Tom  . In truth, my tutorial isn't too technical, and one fellow on DPR critiqued me
for not addressing adjustment layers, which are marginally simpler. But those are just short cuts to masking that are
available for a narrow range of effects. I was trying to demonstrate masking in it's broadest context, which is why
I added a section on selective Gaussian blur at the end of the piece.

 

Re: Thanks Frank

Let me know if I can be of any help, Steve. It's a snap once you grasp the basic concept.

 

Whatever you need, boss :lol:.

I'm serious. You and Patrick have put a lot of hard work and money into building this site. Just ask and I'll be happy to
do anything I can do to help.

 

Photoshop only offers 14 adjustment layers, and I believe Elements is limited to a mere 4. There are dozens of other
filters that require a layer mask to apply selectively. I think it's better to teach the more general application and then,
once the concept is mastered, move to narrower application, like adjustment layers. But that's jmho.

 

Masking for PS Elements

If anyone is using PSE3, I've just learned that, while layer masks don't come with the program, there's a clever "trick"
that allows you to do layer masking without adding 3rd party software. Let me know if you're interested.