I’ve created two separate masks (one positive, one negative).  Creating the mask was fairly easy: 

First duplicate your background layer by double clicking the layer thumb.  This brings a dialogue box to rename the layer.  Press OK.  I usually never rename any layer unless I’ve got more than ten or so things to keep straight.  Next, drag the layer thumb down to the create a new layer tab.  (Next to the trash can.)  This will duplicate your layer.

Use the select color range tool to select most of the blue sky.  I added the rest of the clouds to the selection with the magic wand tool (W).  Press and hold down the Shift key to add to the current selection.  A little plus sign appears next to the wand.  To subtract, hold down the Alt or Option Key and a minus sign should appear.  There is a tolerance setting that should be changed to a much lower value than 100, but this depends on your selection needs.

Note that the Shift and Option (Plus & Minus to selection) keys work with all of the selection tools.  Like the Lasso (L) or the Marquee (M) Select.  Use whatever selection tool is going to best suit your needs to select what you need.  I would suggest using the select color range and the magic wand tool to start.

Remember that sometimes selections can take a while if they are complicated and if you accidentally deselect everything, you can always Undo or Step Backward to get back what you had selected.

Once you’ve got everything that you want in color/greyscale selected, and the ants are marching all over your screen, go to Select>Save Selection.

Name the selection something and press OK.

Hold down Option key and click on your mask thumb to open it.

Go to Select>Load selection.  Change the Channel pulldown menu to what you just named it.

Fill the selection Black either by Edit>Fill, or by using the shortcuts: (D) then (X) then ( + delete).

Edit>Select All ( + a)

Edit>Copy ( + c)

Switch to the other layer mask

Edit>Paste ( + v)

Image>Adjustments>Invert

And here is what your two masks should look like:

If you hide one of the layers, then this is what each one should look like:

What’s cool about this is now we can edit each part of the image separately.  You can literally do whatever you want to the other half of the image with effects and color adjustments.

If you have a keen eye, you may have noticed that the file size is starting to get quite large.  Let’s go ahead and apply the layer mask to each layer.  This will reduce the file size quite a bit.  To do this, right click on the layer mask.  Select apply layer mask.  

The next step is to create several copies of each layer and have a bit of fun to see what you can get.  You don’t have to do this, but I would recommend it just as a quick way of comparing a few different design alternatives.

This is where layer comps comes in handy.  On the top menu, go to Window>Layer Comps.  When you find the winning combination of two layers (or more) turned on, Click on create new layer comp tab on the bottom.  

With Layer Comps, you have the ability to save and review your layer states and composition.  Layer comps will save visibility, position, and your layer style.  

I’ve created a few different layer comps with the six layers that I was working with.  You can scroll through you compositions by using the arrows on the bottom of the panel.

If you were making a poster, you could create several different options with the same file.  Before I knew about this feature, I was constantly saving as… for each new version and it was first of all slow, and always difficult to keep track of which version was what.  Now you know exactly where all of your project revisions are at the click of a button.

Stay tuned for more tips on how to improve your Photoshopping skills.

The layer mask is a way to delete or hide information in an image.  The mask can either be based on a gradient fade out or a alpha channel (black and white) image mask.  I’ll walk you through a few different scenarios.

The first being the most simple:

I’ll use my banner as an example.  We want to take something (the girl’s face) and blend it into the background.  Simple.  But how?

I copied and pasted the girl onto a new layer.

Select the layer you want to apply the mask to.  The mask button will not work if no layer is selected.

There will be an additional white box created next to your layer thumbnail.  This is your layer mask.

Notice that if you right click on the layer mask, it will bring up a menu of options.  This might come in handy later.

OK.  Thanks for bearing with me for the essentials.  Time to get to the magic.

On the Mac, press and hold the OPTION key and click on the layer mask.  Windows: ALT key.  Your image will turn white.  This is the mask.

***  Anything that you paint on the layer mask in black will be hidden from that layer. ***

The beauty of the mask is that you can always go back to modify by painting or filling the mask layer white again.  It usually takes a few times switching back and forth between your mask and your layer image to get it just right.  Hold down the OPT key and click on the mask again to switch back and forth to see the results.

Instead of doing the fade with the gradient tool right away, I will show you in clear b & w how this works.

This is the layer mask.   

And the result as we (hopefully) expected.  But this is not what I was really looking for.  I wanted her eye to be the only thing visible.

You can modify your mask like you would any other layer.  Go back to your mask and select all ( + a) for short.  I want to invert the entire mask to get the desired result.  Image>Adjustments>Invert.

Not too shabby!

Now that you have a general understanding of the layer mask feature, I will show you how to use a gradient to blend the image.  Instead of using a black brush to paint the mask, we want to use the gradient tool.  So check out the mask that I used:

The white part will stay the same, while the darker tones will fade the image out.  Play with the opacity of the gradient tool for desired fading strength, usually 50-75% works best.

Viola!

Be sure to check out part 2 of the layer mask tutorial where I will show you how you can enhance an image.

Layer mask Tutorial part 2

adjective informal

excellent; impressive : his style is so rad.

design |də’zīn|

noun

1 a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made : he has just unveiled his design for the new museum.

• the art or action of conceiving of and producing such a plan or drawing : good design can help the reader understand complicated information | the cloister is of late twelfth century design.

• an arrangement of lines or shapes created to form a pattern or decoration : pottery with a lovely blue and white design.

2 purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object : the appearance of design in the universe.