Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Photoshop Masks - Trouble Shooting and Quick Keys

Sometimes it may feel like editing layer masks in Photoshop does not work. For example, the eraser tool may not erase. If that is the case, there are a few possible reasons and remedies.
  1. In a mask, erase and delete changes colour to the background colour. To make it erase from the mask, make sure black is the background colour. A quick way to do this, is to highlight the mask and simply press "D", which sets the foreground and background colours to their default values - white and black. (The default values for an image area are the opposite - black and white.)
  2. Make sure the mask is highlighted. (If it is not, edits will obviously go somewhere else.)
  3. If you have a selection, make sure it selects the thing you want to edit, and not the reverse. (shift-command-I).
Some keyboard shortcuts for working with masks:
  • To move a mask from one layer to another, just drag it.
  • To copy a mask from one layer to another, alt-drag it to the other layer.
  • To copy a mask from one image to another, drag the layer icon it is attached to to the other image. You cannot drag the mask alone.
  • To temporarily hide the effects of a mask, shift-click on it.
  • To make a selection from a mask, command-click on it.

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