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Post by hmca on Jul 14, 2018 18:43:40 GMT
I have been trying to understand clipping masks. Seeing BillieJean's recent brush mask made me try these brayer block masks that I got from French Kiss again. If I am understanding how to use them, it's just a matter of putting your image above the mask and clipping it to the mask beneath. Is there another step, I'm missing? Are you supposed to do something with blend modes or something else? Looking at examples 3 and 4 I can't help but think I'm missing something. Screenshots:  Layers:  Brayerblock 7  |
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Post by Sepiana on Jul 14, 2018 19:18:09 GMT
Helen, I don't have those masks by Leslie Nicole but I do have similar ones by someone else. They do require an extra step -- blending modes. See if these tutorials will help you.
Using Photo Masks |
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Post by ritage on Jul 14, 2018 19:30:12 GMT
Helen, I have applied Blend Modes to the picture layer, but if the mask is gray or black the choices are very limited. When I want to do that I first change the color of the mask so the Blend Mode has something to work with. One can experiment with this endlessly.
You can also paint on or erase from the mask, if the shape or opacity does not please you.
Of course, Lillias is the mask master, she probably has more ideas on this.
Rita |
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Post by hmca on Jul 14, 2018 19:41:27 GMT
Sepiana, thank you. I will have to see if I can read through those tuts later tonight.....right now I am trying to do too many things at once. Rita, thank you. I will try your suggestion about changing the color of the mask when I work at this again. It was Lillias' post on using a brush as a mask that made me bring this question up. I had been trying something a few days ago and finally gave up. I have no doubt that our "Master Masker" will have some good suggestions.  And now you know we are going to have her blushing! |
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Post by Lillias on Jul 14, 2018 20:16:29 GMT
Helen the results you have obtained using the brayer block masks are quite correct. I have some of these masks from French Kiss. When you look at your brayer masks numbers one and two they will be darker to start with whereas numbers three and four will have a lot of much lighter perhaps even clear areas in them and that’s why you see what you are seeing when you clip them to a photo. Try this - With mask three or four click on the thumbnail of the mask to activate it and then if you choose a soft brush at a reduced opacity and brush over the mask on your page you will see what I mean. Another way to use these masks is as a decoration to your piece of art - ctrl/cmd click on the thumbnail of your mask to get the marching ants and then go to your gradient icon, choose a gradient and drag your cursor over the mask on your page to colour it. Resize it and use it as a background. I just love masks. They open up so many different ways of doing things. You can invert them so that they look white on your page. You can add a layer mask to the mask layer and add or subtract from the mask etc; If you go to page 4 of the Digital Scrapbook Board the seventh item down ‘Playing with Masks’ and go to page two of that thread and scroll down you will see a page I did using 3 French Kiss brayered masks. One as a clipping mask and the other two as embellishments behind the clipped mask photo.
Edit: Another way to change the colour of the mask is to put a solid colour adjustment layer above the mask and clip it to the mask and cycle through the blend modes till you find one you like.
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Post by Lillias on Jul 14, 2018 20:18:24 GMT
And now you know we are going to have her blushing! You are so right - I'm all covered in emulsion as they say' but thank you. |
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Post by Lillias on Jul 14, 2018 22:40:32 GMT
Further to above... Here is a link on the French Kiss site to a free action to add colour to transparent png masks/overlays. Just scroll down the page for the download button. There is also a link in the page to a video showing how to use it. I forgot I had downloaded it some time ago. I used it tonight to try it and it works just fine. Adds Colour to transparent pngs and overlays |
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Post by hmca on Jul 15, 2018 1:33:11 GMT
Lillias, thank you for your detailed explanations and pointing me to the other resources. As I learn something new, I will add a post to this thread. Anyone else following it, who would like to share examples of what they are learning is welcome to join in. Hopefully, with time, we will increase our understanding of how to use clipping masks.
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Post by hmca on Jul 15, 2018 3:05:55 GMT
I tried a number of the brayer block masks and then inverted them. In most cases I didn't see much of a difference in the results:  I also tried selecting one of the masks and applying a gradient to use as a background:   All I had time for tonight. Tomorrow I will look at the second link provided by Sepiana above. Please let me know if I have done things correctly. |
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Post by Lillias on Jul 15, 2018 13:08:23 GMT
Helen you are using the clipping masks correctly but I think maybe I sent you on the wrong road by mentioning inverting the masks. Please forget inverting for the moment and let’s concentrate on just masking. For this page I have used two of the French Kiss masks. One is very dark/opaque and the other as you can see is much less so. I have clipped the photo to the dark mask and used the other mask as more of an embellishment on my page. To colour that mask I used a solid colour adjustment layer and clipped that to the mask. In this case I haven’t used a blending mode on the mask but you could do if you wanted to. Image from morguefile masks from French Kiss. Background texture from Sydney.   |
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Post by hmca on Jul 15, 2018 16:58:45 GMT
Moving right along : ) Thank you for your detailed instructions, Lillias!!!! Two different brayer block masks used for decoration. One was placed above the masked flower and tinted lavendar the other was placed on a layer beneath the flower and tinted a darker purple. I found that because the brayer brush mask came in as grayscale, I needed to convert it to rgb before I could change the color using the solid color adj. layer.   |
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Post by Lillias on Jul 15, 2018 19:36:18 GMT
Oh I'm loving this Helen. Well done. I hope you are pleased yourself and feeling that you are getting somewhere with the masks. Next time you must try a gradient colour adjustment on the mask just for fun. You can also try blend modes and reducing opacity etc:
Just as a matter of interest following your problem with the mask coming in grayscale I did some testing and it is the queerest thing. Because I unchecked ‘floating documents’ in the Preferences of PSE any image I open comes in on its own tab. I discovered that while still in its own tab the FK mask was grayscale but as soon as I dragged it onto my document it changed to RGB colour without my doing anything and I was able to use the colour adjustment layer just fine. Always learning with this programme.
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Post by hmca on Jul 15, 2018 20:36:04 GMT
Thanks, Lillias. Taking these baby steps, with your support, is proving to be a great learning experience for me. I tried your suggestion re. the grayscale and it worked as you described. Worked on adding a gradient to a mask. After doing this I am thinking that this was meant to be more decorative behind the image. When I applied it to the mask and clipped the flower it wasn't noticeable.....similar to when I inverted masks.   Perhaps later tonight, I'll have time to continue. Thanks again for your help. |
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Post by Lillias on Jul 15, 2018 22:30:32 GMT
Worked on adding a gradient to a mask. After doing this I am thinking that this was meant to be more decorative behind the image. Yes that's correct Helen. You won't see it on a mask clipped to a photo. I should have explained myself better. |
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Post by Lillias on Jul 15, 2018 22:34:20 GMT
Hopefully this will give another example of what I'm talking about re the masks and how to use them and you will see an inverted mask too. Image and background image from pixabay Masks from French Kiss.   |
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And now you know we are going to have her blushing! 
