There are points in the Photoshop Learning Curve - that you can point back to and say: Oh - that's how you use that. Wow.
I can remember these points:
1) Adjustment Layers as opposed to working on the background layer
2) Related to that, getting a real feel for various blending modes, and going beyond that to only blending within a certain range
3) And during the last week: Layer Masks have really kicked in.
It probably came out of working with PhotoKit - especially in what they call the Creative Sharpener step - where they'd set up a black mask for you and let you paint the parts in that you wanted to reveal.
There were a number of times that I wanted certain areas to be sharped - but not others. And I began to get a feel for layer masks. Soon the adjustment layers - whether levels, curves - whatever - had their masks nicely feathered. Feathered, feathered, feathered. How much do you feather? Even that began to kick in when thinking in terms of the dpi of the print. If I feather this much I'm talking about 1/4 inch on the final print.
So you sit there and say, oh it would be nice if the foreground wasn't quite as sharped up as the background. In fact, that would look more natural.
Or I'd love to just make some area less contrasty. The layer mask power is incredible.
I don't think that everyone hits the various Learning Signposts in the same order. But when you do - you remember the moment.
I suppose that I should have taken a course in PS and could have compressed the learning curve - but that idea never dawned on me. On the other hand, I do get the "rush" when one of these signposts hit me over the head.
3 comments:
Michael, just about any book on Photoshop should give a good description of how to work with layer masks. It's not that they're complicated; it's just that I didn't realize how they could be used. You can probably just do a search for Photoshop Layer Masks on the web.
Make an adjustment level layer. When you look at the layers, you'll see a white box icon next to the layer mask. This just means that everything is being passed through to the layers beneath it.
Select the layer mask by clicking on it once. Pick a brush and paint black on it. So what you're doing is just saying that anything in black won't pass through to the layers beneath.
You can use all the tools on the layer mask. Fill command - etc. etc.
It wasn't that I didn't know what they were - but I didn't realize how they could be used.
hey Dave- how do you use blending modes? I use the other items you mentioned but blending layers no never...
Bill - select the background layer (or for that matter any layer - but try it on the background layer first) -
Layer -> Dupe Layer
So you got two layers of the same image.
Now select the dupe layer in the layer tab, and where it says "normal" - change it to something else - say "soft light" and see what happens.
You are basically telling PS to merge the dupe layer with the layers beneath it.
You can adjust the opacity of the dupe layer. You can also add a layer mask to the dupe layer so that only some stuff is combined this way.
Even more - you can click on the layer thumbnail and you'll get a menu which gives even control over how exactly the two layers should be blended based on luminosity or color of pixels of the two layers.
I don't use the blending all that much, but sometmes a low-opacity screen blend is useful, especially combined with a layer mask to pull out some detail in an overly dense (dark) area. And I tend to like the "soft light" look.
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