qob.<br>1) select the layer you want to use the mask on.<br>2) hit that little circle-in-a-square button at the bottom of the layers pallete like in the first image on the tutorial (this is only in ps 7, not elements btw... elements doesnt have layer masks)<br>3) in the layers pallete a white box will show up beside the picture of your layer, this is how you select your mask so you can edit it. to edit the layer itself click on the regular picture of your layer.<br>4)to edit your mask use a black or white brush. Black will "erase" and white will "restore" <br>5) you can lower the opacity of your brush... this is very useful for blending 2 pictures together (puting diferent eyes on a face, for example)... rather than erasing with the eraser tool... this way you can change you mind later and restore parts you previously masked out. It is also more precise as you can go in with a tiny 1/2 opaque brush and get rid of the little white dots around your crop<br>6) you can also use the blur tool on the edge of your layer mask. This way you will not blur your PICTURE at all, making it fuzzy, but just blur the junction of the pictures, creating a seamless natural look. <br>7)you can get a selection from your layer mask at any time by left clicking the picture of your mask on the layers pallete and choosing "set selection to layer mask." This is very useful if you want to use a "color" layer or some such on your layer or... <br>
If you have a selection on your screen and you press the layer mask button for a layer that Does not currently have a mask applied to it, it will apply a mask to that layer at the selection (giving the same visual result as cutting that layer)<br>9) it is useful to know that you can "unlink" your picture layer and your mask by clicking the little "chain" icon that sits between the picture of your layer and picture of your mask on the layers pallete. This allows you to MOVE your picture, while maintaining the bounds of your mask. This is very useful and cannot be done if you rely on erasing and cutting. This is also great for liquify, ripple, pinch and other distortion filters... you can liquify the picture inside your mask without the picture streaching outside the bounds of the mask.<br>10) there are some other useful options availible when you left click your mask icon (picture in the pallete), such as "apply layer mask"...you may occassionally want to do this to simplify things. <br><br>I think that about covers it?<br>
