What’s the difference between Masks and Selections?

R
Posted By
Roberto
Dec 15, 2003
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539
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6
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Closed
Okay, this one might be obvious to most of you, but I haven’t been using masks so far and know nothing about them. So, could anyone tell me what are Masks, what are they used for, and what’s the difference between masking and selecting?

B
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R
replytonewsgrouponlyplease
Dec 15, 2003
"GooMaster" wrote in message
Okay, this one might be obvious to most of you, but I haven’t been using masks so far and know nothing about them. So, could anyone tell me what are Masks, what are they used for, and what’s the difference between masking and selecting?

B

My introduction to masking was in airbrushing where I’d cover the piece I was painting with a sheet of sticky plastic (mask it) and cut out (or select) areas to be painted. If I wanted to soften the edge I’d just lift the mask up a bit to expose the paper underneath to expose it to overspray and I’d get a feathered edge. Photoshop works the same way but with a lot more options to select your mask. What are they used for? Hmm, lots of things unless you’re just making global adjustments to photos or some such thing. Here, picture this. You’ve got a photo with a silhouette of a horse in the foreground against a boring gray overcast sky. You select the black foreground (by magic wand, by colour, lasso tool or whatever) because it’s the easiest being a solid color and all. Then you invert your selection (Ctrl I) so you can work on the background. Now you can create a sunset with the gradient tool for instance or just haul one in from another photo and the horse will remain untouched in the foreground. HTH Dr. J.
M
mscir
Dec 15, 2003
I reduce it to simple terms and think of them as being the inverse of one another, what you mask is protected from change, what you select can be changed.

GooMaster wrote:
Okay, this one might be obvious to most of you, but I haven’t been using masks so far and know nothing about them. So, could anyone tell me what are Masks, what are they used for, and what’s the difference between masking and selecting?

B
A
Adam
Dec 15, 2003
GooMaster wrote:
Okay, this one might be obvious to most of you, but I haven’t been using masks so far and know nothing about them. So, could anyone tell me what are Masks, what are they used for, and what’s the difference between masking and selecting?

B

My explanation:

Think of how you can change a layer’s opacity by entering a different percentage in the box on the Layers palette. A layer mask allows you to do the same thing individually for every pixel on the layer. instead of a percentage box, you simply paint the pixels of the mask. White pixels are 100% opaque, black pixels are 0% opaque (or fully transparent).

The main connection between a mask and a selection is that you can convert from one to the other. One example where this is helpful is when creating a mask to isolate a subject from its background. You can use all the selection tools to carefully select the subject and then convert the selection to a mask. Then you can use additional tools like airbrush or curves to further modify the mask.

-Adam
GP
Glenn Pechacek
Dec 15, 2003
"GooMaster" wrote in message
Okay, this one might be obvious to most of you, but I haven’t been using masks so far and know nothing about them. So, could anyone tell me what are Masks, what are they used for, and what’s the difference between masking and selecting?

B

In PhotoShop terms a "Mask" is created using an alpha channel. But in art terms a mask can be created using a selection.
R
Roberto
Dec 16, 2003
Okay, I thank all of you who have responded! Mask is quite a neat tool isn’t it?

Adam wrote:

GooMaster wrote:

Okay, this one might be obvious to most of you, but I haven’t been using masks so far and know nothing about them. So, could anyone tell me what are Masks, what are they used for, and what’s the difference between masking and selecting?

B

My explanation:

Think of how you can change a layer’s opacity by entering a different percentage in the box on the Layers palette. A layer mask allows you to do the same thing individually for every pixel on the layer. instead of a percentage box, you simply paint the pixels of the mask. White pixels are 100% opaque, black pixels are 0% opaque (or fully transparent).
The main connection between a mask and a selection is that you can convert from one to the other. One example where this is helpful is when creating a mask to isolate a subject from its background. You can use all the selection tools to carefully select the subject and then convert the selection to a mask. Then you can use additional tools like airbrush or curves to further modify the mask.

-Adam
M
myJanee
Dec 17, 2003
In article <brjemd$af3$ says…
Okay, this one might be obvious to most of you, but I haven’t been using masks so far and know nothing about them. So, could anyone tell me what are Masks, what are they used for, and what’s the difference between masking and selecting?

B

Hi there, GooMaster!
Masks are very cool indeed! Instead of trying to tell you what they do, which these other people have done quite well, i’ll point you to a tutorial which uses them. By working through this, it is my hope that you will start getting ideas for other ways to use them. In fact, I’ll give you a few:
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/burn/burn2.htm
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/layermask/layermask.htm
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/sepia/sepia.htm
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/paint4/city2.htm
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/branches/branches.htm

Each of these uses a layer mask to hide part of a layer and let part of it show, but the results are quite different. Have fun!
Always me, Janee

—
http://www.myjanee.com for Janee’s PS Tutorials and PS Resource Links, Janee’s Monthly Art Challenge, Gallery, and more!

You can find my email address at http://www.myjanee.com/contact.htm .

If you like my answers or my website, you may want to have a look at my publications.
Read about them at
http://www.myjanee.com/graphiccreations/publications.htm

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