Is there any way to use the gradient tool as an eraser? Or to erase an area gradually from no erasure to entirely trransparent. What i seek is different than a gradient that turns transparent. For example, what if I select a multi-colored circle, and want to turn the center transparent, but becoming increasingly opaque as it moves toward the edges. It’s something i need to do every so often, and don’t have a clue how to do it.
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That’s one of the few tools in Photoshop, I haven’t explored much yet. I’ll read up about it on the online info, and check it out in my "Studio Techniques" help book. Thanks.
Not sure if the Studio Techniques book would cover the use of a layer mask in exactly the way you want to use it but you can try it out for yourself by applying a layer mask to a layer (from the button at the bottom of the pallet) and then dragging a black to white gradient across the mask and seeing what happens. One or two tries should easily give you the idea of what is going on. 🙂
Understanding layer masks is key to Photoshop proficiency. Along with a host of other benefits, the immediate advantage you will see is the ability to do nondestructive editing by painting on the mask, rather than the image, which will allow you to show or hide as much of that layer as you want, while keeping the rgb data intact.
So important are layer masks that I would go so far as to say that many of the higher order tools in photoshop are "shortcuts" that use layer masks internally to give the desired effect. The "clone" stamp is a good example. In the old days, there was no clone stamp (or offset brush, as we called it) in many of the paint packages, and the same effect was simulated (much more laboriously!) with mattes and offsets.
Check it out, you won’t believe what you’ve been missing.
I spent a few hours with the layer mask yesterday, and accomplished, very quickly, exactly the effect that first prompted this thread. It was just one of those things i hadn’t gotten to yet. Now that I am starting to use Photoshop almost fulltime, I have been getting familiar with one thing after another. I’ve been spending almost too much time lately, getting very familiar with the blending effects and the shadow and glow effects that go with it.
I’m doing a series of fine art scans of my own drawings at 1200 ppi,giving them the Photoshop treatment. I just discovered some really nice Japanese paper that has been coated to work with my inkjet.
very clever. it reminds me of that trick of moving a magnifying glass layer around the screen over a main image and having the "glass" part of it only show through to a magnified version of the main image.
By the way, I’m looking to buy some new photoshop book that will take me to amore advanced level. I’ve read through Studio Techniques, and understand everything in that. Any ideas?
That is exactly the way that LivePicture’s Cloning Layers work and it is still, even though Photoshop now has the patching tool, a very good way of doing certain cloning tasks.
I checked out "Classroom in a Book". It seems to offer a good intro to Photoshop with lessons and such. I’m looking for something for an advanced user. Something that doesn’t start off giving definitions for the tools and menus. Any other recommendations?
By the way, I’ve started shopping for an Epson 2200, and notice that it’s been on the market for almost a year. I imagine Epson must be close to releasing a newer model. Anyone have an idea when the new model will be out?
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