Hot & Dirty Tutorial: Masks

In the previous tutorial I used a feature in photoshop called "Masking" and realized that it isn't something everyone knows about. It took me a million years to come around to using masks but I must say it is much more efficient than my previous methods. Like a lot of people, I can be hard headed sometimes.

The mantra of masks is "Black Reveals, White Conceals".

(I like to say hide instead of conceal because I mix up rhyming words very easily)

I hope this helps! The alternative is actually erase parts of the top image. You have to hide a copy of the image in case you erase too much and essentially start all over. A rule of thumb for your images is to cause as little damage as possible. Damage would be erasing chunks of the image.

With masking, you can delete the mask or even just deactive it (left click on the mask for an option menu). You never actually damage the image itself, just the mask.