• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Kate Hadfield Designs

Kate Hadfield Designs

Hand-drawn Digital Scrapbooking Kits and Clip Art for teachers and crafters!

  • Blog
  • Gallery
  • Freebies
  • Doodle Den
  • About
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • search
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Gallery
  • Free Goodies
  • Doodle Den
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • Search

  • My Sketchbooks
  • Templates
  • Printables
  • Craft Projects
  • Colouring Pages
  • Tutorials
  • Scrapbook Ideas

Photoshop Tips: Simple Masking – Part 1

10 July 2013 by Christa
maskit1

(Used Kate Hadfield’s Doodled Pocket Pages- Rounded for photo edge & Scrapping 9 to 5 for graphic)

Welcome back to those following the Tips & Tricks in Photo Shop mini tutorials on Kate’s Blog. To all of the new followers, my name is Christa, and I hope you enjoy these tutorials! My goal is to help you have fun with all those wonderful tools in your graphics software. I hope you learn a few new techniques and start using them, to make your digital scrapping experience more fun!

Today’s Tips & Tricks will be on Simple Masking. I say simple masking as it may be just what you need to get rid of a particular portion of a doodle or element to have your layout look more realistic, or cleaner. For the tutorial header picture, that is what I did. I used a layer mask on the mini layout picture so I could erase the corners to fit under the doodled rounded pocket element.

So-what exactly does a Maskâ do? Just like you would wear a Mask to a costume party to hide your facial identity, the Mask tool in Photo Shop does exactly the same thing without damaging, or changing the original element or photo. This is wonderful as you can change things at any time if you are not satisfied with something you did. You can also delete the layer mask totally, and you will be back at your original image.  Once you start playing with Masks (if you haven’t already), you will find it/them, to be a go to tool in your Tool Box arsenal!

Without further adieu, let’s dive in!

Simple Masking:

We are going to be exploring 2 Mask techniques. Layer masking (Part 1) that can be done in all Photo Shop editions, and Clipping Masks (part 2) that are available in CS3 (and above), and PSE10/PSE11 versions.

Layer Mask: is inside the actual Layer. To invoke this you would go to the bottom of your layer palette and click on the little lens icon.

maskit2
  • What we want to do is Mask the portion of the paper clip to appear like it is physically clipped to the book holding the paper down. As we place the element down, it looks like it is just laying there with no use. We can either mask the inside curl or the outside curl whichever is your preference. In this example I will mask the outside curl/bend of the paper clip as it will be easier to show in the screen shot.
  • Make sure the paper clip layer is highlighted in your layer palette and then select the icon at the bottom of the palette that looks like a camera or lens. (If you hover over it with your mouse, it will show that it is the Add Layer Mask icon.)
maskit3
  • In order to Mask we will need to use a brush to paint out what we do not want to show or hide so to speak. Since this is an element, choose a hard brush from your brush drop down – not too large as we want to have a brush that will just be sized about the diameter of the wire on the paper clip.
maskit4
  • Select a Hard brush sized about 5 from the Brush palette. Mode is Normal, with Opacity of 100%.
  • Make sure the foreground color is Black.
  • Select the layer mask (white box) in the layer palette.
maskit5
  • “Zoom/Magnify” your workspace so you have a larger screen to see as you mask. In the white box in the layer palette you will see the paint brush strokes of black. This is hiding/masking the area we do not want to see.
  • Using the brush, I will start painting the outer edge of the clip that I wish to hide/mask.
maskit6
  • Make sure you have selected the layer mask before you start painting. It will have 4 darkened corners to let you know the mask layer is invoked.
maskit7
  • Masking is now complete. I am going to add a drop shadow to the remaining portion of the paper clip.
maskit8
  • After applying shadow I looked at it, and the shadow wasnt right so I adjusted to change the distance from 5 to 2 as reflected above. As you can see it looks more real.
  • The below screen shot will show the layer mask turned off and then turned back on. Look at the layer palette. When you turn off the layer mask it places a red X there. You can also delete the layer mask if you decide you do not want to hide anything.
  • If you changed your mind and want to keep the outer loop of the paper clip and mask the inner layer, you could delete the mask and re-invoke add layer mask to redo or you can switch your paint color to white and paint over the outer loop. Then switch back to black and mask the inner loop.
maskit9
maskit10
  • That is it! Pretty simple to hide what you don’t want to show in an element layout.
maskit11
  • I am not going to go into detail here, but you would use the same effect of the layer masking to blend a photo into the background. See my layer palette as you can see I duplicated the photo layer several times and used different blend modes, but it is the layer mask I want you to see in this example. Layer Masking is a lot of fun experiment! (Face of the little girl is blurred in the sample as I did this for one of ladies at TLP and did not want to post her daughter’s face without permission.)
maskit12

That’s it for today! Thank you for joining me on this Masking Adventure!  Please leave me a comment if you have any questions.

Stay tuned for Part 2 Clipping Masks in the next Photoshop Tips & Tricks on the Kate Hadfield Designs Blog.

blogavatar3500

SAVE FOR LATER:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email

You might also like:

Christa

About Christa

I have been a member of Kate Hadfield Design's Creative Team since Dec. 2011. I began dabbling in Digital graphics/digital signatures in 1998, when I first started using PSP. I switched over to Photo Impact, and since 2004 I have been using Photo Shop (and currently CS3) for all my digital layouts, cards, and photos. I love having a colorful creative outlet to express myself! (Oh and BTW, I am a "coffee-holic"!)

Previous Post: « Doodled Pocket Pages #2
Next Post: Photoshop Tips: Simple Masking – Part 2 »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarShivani

    22 August 2013 at 11:34 pm

    Hi christa, I tried your masking technique with an element part of which was over a photograph. It did get rid of the element but left a mark where I had used the brush. Any idea why this might be hapening?

    Reply
    • cfilecfile

      22 August 2013 at 11:43 pm

      Shivani, without being able to see your psd file, it is hard to speculate, however the first thing I can think of is that you had a shadow on the element and then when you used the mask, it left the “brush marks”. If that is not the case, then perhaps it is the opacity? I usually go over the edging area to make sure it is completely gone… you can use the eye to turn off the layer beneath just to make sure, but I really think from what it sounds like there was a shadow on the element when you went to mask it. Try the element with no shadow, then mask out the part and then shadow… see if that helps. If that is not the answer let me know and perhaps you can pm me through the lily pad and I can see your psd file. Christa

      Reply
  2. AvatarAmy

    22 July 2013 at 2:29 pm

    Hoping you’re making a Royal Baby pack! So exciting!

    Reply
  3. ChristaChrista

    19 July 2013 at 11:39 am

    Thank you Sue!

    Reply
  4. AvatarSusan Cahalane

    19 July 2013 at 12:05 am

    Thank you Christa! Fantastic tutorial!

    ✿Sue✿
    ✿Science for Kids Blog✿

    Reply
  5. ChristaChrista

    14 July 2013 at 7:47 pm

    I have posted 2 screen shots in TLP forum for the PSE11 tools
    http://the-lilypad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26572

    Reply
  6. AvatarSandra Oseas

    14 July 2013 at 6:52 pm

    Thank you, Christa! How nice!!!

    Reply
    • ChristaChrista

      14 July 2013 at 6:59 pm

      Thank you Sandra !

      Reply
  7. Avatarmisspam

    14 July 2013 at 3:32 am

    Sooooo happy to have found your clipart and fabulous blog. I adore your style. I just bought you superhero set that is going to be PERFECT for decorating my classroom bulletin board. I would LOVE it if I could buy a similar set of cute kids in regular clothes.

    Reply
    • christachrista

      14 July 2013 at 7:50 pm

      Kate’s doodles are wonderful for that!

      Reply
    • KateKate

      16 July 2013 at 1:57 pm

      Thanks for your kind words Pam! I shall add your suggestion to my to-do list! 🙂

      Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

The Doodled Newsletter

Subscribe for monthly (ish!) emails containing all the info on new products, sales, giveaways, special offers and the occasional behind the scenes sneak peak of what’s on my drawing board! Oh, and you get access to all the exclusive freebies in the VIP Doodle Den too!


Processing…
Success! You’re on the list.
Whoops! There was an error and we couldn’t process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

ABOUT

High resolution, hand-drawn products for digital scrapbookers, hybrid crafters & teachers. Add a touch of hand-drawn whimsy to your scrapbook pages, craft projects and teaching resources with these fun illustrations!

MY ACCOUNT

My Account
Order History
Wish List
Downloads
Gift Certificates
Newsletter

INFORMATION

Contact Us
FAQ & Help
Terms of Use
Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Kate Hadfield Designs

Back to top
Welcome to Kate Hadfield Designs. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. OkLearn more