NoBs Digital Dogbowl

Fixing the Mask of Zorro

In a class recently a student came up to me at the break with a question about cleaning up a large and complicated mask. He had been painting in the mask with short strokes but found that it wasn’t as smooth as he would like in larger sections. He was surprised when I told him that the best way to fix it was to use a different tool, the eyedropper.

For those who aren’t familiar with masking this is a power Photoshop technique where you add a layer mask on a layer to hide parts of that layer or to reveal parts of the layer below. Masks can also be used to make selections or clean up copy images brought over from other images. By just using the brush tool and black and white colors you can easily paint around images for the effects you want. Layer masks can be added by clicking on the icon at the Layer Pallet that looks like a square with a circle in it. This will place a white square next to the image on the layer. Clicking on it and using the brush tool you paint with black to revel the lower images. If you make a mistake you just paint over it with white. You can even reduce the opacity of the brush for even more control because the color will be less and you can add to the color in steps like 10% till you get the effect you want. This will also feather the edges if you are using this as a quick selection.

The problems some people have is if you are doing using a lot of short stokes or changing the opacity as you are working the mask. This can create some uneven effects over large areas like sky or skin. You can sit there and try to go over and over to balance them out but there is an easier way. But first here is how to see the mask so you can fix it.

Here is an image from our Hawaii vacation of a bunch of Lava. Let’s say that I wanted to bring out the sky or even replace it.

As you can see I added an adjustment layer of Levels by clicking on the Adjustment Icon at the bottom of the Layer Pallet that looks like a Circle that is half black/half white and picking Levels. When you add an adjustment layer it always comes with a layer mask filled with white. I can make any Level adjustment I want and then paint this in with the brush tool. White revels the total layer and when I paint in with black or shades of gray the lower layers start to come through. But let’s say that after painting around the image I wanted to revel all of the Lava Rock but just have the adjustment in the sky. I could delete the layer mask and start again but there is an easier way. First I need to see just the layer mask so I can more easily fix it. Hold down the Alt key and click on the layer mask.

Now you can see the whole mask in just black and white. For a simple mask you can just go with 100% black and white and paint over the general area to cover up minor problems.

However if you need to fill in smaller areas or gaps with gray then make sure the brush is at 100% and sample the gray color you want by either switching to eye dropper tool and sampling the gray or holding down the Alt key and clicking. Now you can just paint within those areas.

So for all you power Photoshop users here is new way to show off your masking skills and for the rest of us an easy way to clean up to masks so our work can really shine.

Good luck and have fun.

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