The Answer to All Your Problems: Masking – Basix
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The Answer to All Your Problems: Masking – Basix

on Mar 2nd 2011 with 50 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: Adobe Photoshop CS5
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Estimated Completion Time: 9 Minutes

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 12 of 29 in the Photoshop Basix Session
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Are you new to Photoshop? Have you been trying to teach yourself the basics of Photoshop but have found the amount of educational material available on the net a bit overwhelming? As the world’s #1 Photoshop site, we’ve published a lot of tutorials. So many, in fact, that we understand how overwhelming our site may be to those of you who may be brand new to Photoshop. This tutorial is part of a 25-part video series demonstrating everything you will need to know to start working in Photoshop.

Photoshop Basix, by Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor, Martin Perhiniak includes 25 short video tutorials, around 5 – 10 minutes in length that will teach you all the fundamentals of working with Photoshop. Today’s tutorial, Part 12: The Answer to All Your Problems: Masking will explain how to save selections as layer masks and refine them using the brush tool. Let’s get started!

 
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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Martin is a Hungarian graphic designer, digital artist and an Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor (Design Master). He is currently teaching and working in London but usually travels around the UK and share his love for Adobe products and graphic design. You can follow him on his blog or on Twitter.  

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  • http://www.graphiics.com Graphiics

    Your Educational material is just awesome…i loved it

  • zip

    The mos awesome Photoshop Tutorial!

  • trevor

    Another great Tut., looking forward to the next one.

  • http://www.greenwoodblogdesign.com Deanna

    Thank you! A great tutorial on a subject I’ve been meaning to learn. You have a great straightforward teaching style that is easy to understand.

  • http://www.balancedclutter.com Ryan

    That is one of the most effective masking tutorials that I’ve come across that really clearly explained how masking works. Thanks a lot for that!

  • priya

    gr8 tutorial…. big thanx…
    its one of the most wanted technique/////……… thanx alot…..

  • cadabre

    Simply amazing!

  • http://www.theanimegallery.com IGC

    Great tutorial as always.

    I’m really enjoying the Basix series.

  • Nick

    Great tut! Good job on keeping the tutorial easy but useful! Keep it up!

  • obliterati

    Really well-done tutorial!

  • http://www.victoryoutreachdublin.ie Andrew

    Awsome, love these tutorials, looking foraward to the next one.

  • 7

    I wonder, will you address vector masks along with clipping masks in the next video? Masks are powerful alone, but you reach a whole new level when you use raster, vector & clipping masks in unison.

  • Gonyo

    Fine work! I have been working with photoshop for some time now. I didn’t take any classes, I’m just learning it by trying things out and these tutorials give me a great basis on which I can build further. Great work. Thanks a lot!

  • godbout

    hahaha this is excellent once again!

  • scratch

    Simple, easy to follow .

    Keep up the great tutorials.

  • bazwillrun

    Excellent tutorial, so clearly expained and shown
    Thankyou

  • Krishnam Raju

    it is amazing and excellent!
    thankyou

  • Novix

    These are very nice tutorials man. I’m using Photoshop like 3 years, and I’m still learning from you! Keep it up :)

    • http://www.be.net/moey MOEY!

      After 3 years of photoshop, you should really know this mate :P

  • http://www.c-v-g.at claudio.von.grubens

    hi martin,

    nice one – i wonder why to use to layer masks in one layer?

    cheers
    cvg

  • Tom

    The most essential tool in the Photoshop toolbox, imho. Don’t know how many times I’ve tried and failed to share the concept of non-destructive masking with colleagues and friends, every time overwhelming them in a cloud of confusion. Your teaching technique is so clear and concise, Martin, that from now on I’ll just be able to point folks to this tut and save myself the aggravation!

    One minor criticism: your intro suggests that you’ll show ways to refine the mask, and you do hint at some of the potential to paint, and you do actually use move, invert and transform, but it goes much much further than that. I assume you’ll delve into it a little deeper as your excellent series continues. Baby steps, huh?

    • http://www.yesimadesigner.com Martin Perhiniak
      Author

      Cheers Tom, I’m really happy you found it useful and yes, I will talk about refinements in the following tutorials :)

  • Daniel

    Great Tutorial!

    Thank you Martin

  • iJohnny00110101

    Nicely done. Simple and easy to understand.

  • mo

    you’re awesome. keep it up!

  • alfred

    Dear Martin,

    thank you for helping out legions of art loving people who always wanted to learn to make beautiful things and were capable of it, yet because of the jump technology has taken in the recent past has made it difficult for people to realize their dreams, you kind sir are doing what in my humble opinion is god’s work and giving them and outlet and a way to put their dreams into tangible things that they can see and get pleasure from.
    So I thank you once again for the selfless effort you are putting into it, we on our part will do all we can to spread the word about what a great resource you have created which is at the same time lucid, practical, simple,efficient and separates what is important from what is just frills, so that one may learn to use PSD the right way and then build on the foundation that you are helping create.

    Thanking you in anticipation for the completion of this series and god speed.
    Cheers
    Alfred
    PS – I know I may sound ungrateful but is it possible to increase the speed at which the lessons are published so that people with short attention span are not left with a sense of despair – as we like to sit in a session and see all the videos that are there …….and not break the continuity …………as I saw all your videos in a span of 12 hours ………thnks

  • Allyson

    I have been using layer masks for a while and thought I had gotten the basic gist of it but your video showed that there is so much more to it! Thank you so much for your tutorial, I look forward to more!

  • http://www.razorpixels.co.uk Harry

    Like the poster before me I thought I pretty much knew everything to know about layer masks! Wish Adobe got someone like you to write a manual for the rest of us so I didn’t waste so much time :S

  • http://www.yesimadesigner.com Martin Perhiniak
    Author

    I’m so glad to read these amazing positive comments and to see everyone find my tutorials useful. I’m really grateful for your feedback guys and I hope you will also find the next episodes helpful.

    • Idris

      Martin; Link for episode 13 is broken/not working : (

      Loving the tutorials and the ease of which I they are delivered.

      Ty

      • http://psd.tutsplus.com/ Grant Friedman

        It’s because it hasn’t been published yet ;-). It will be up tomorrow morning (Wednesday EST)

  • kubecki

    Dude, you’re doing a great job with theese. They are very helpful, thanks.

  • Sleeman

    Thanks Martin for all those useful tutorials .

  • Epithalamion

    I love you man !
    Thanks a lot. You are a real teacher that knows how to explain the foreground concepts behind nondestructive manipulation of images like black&white concept etc. That’s what I call a serious
    teaching. It’s the wisest tutorial I’ve seen.

    :)

  • Ross

    I have been working through the adobe Photoshop “Classroom in a book” and finding it powerful but extremely tedious. Martins tutorials are like splashing your face in a cool, crystal clear mountain stream (ie. invigorating).
    Thanks a lot mate!

  • http://pakdenanto.blogspot.com/ NantaPD

    Thank a lot usefull. Important for biginners……

  • rajesh

    really great yaar..

  • cyour

    thanks fo this tuts, we need more like that

  • Redj12

    I am french, and i like your english :D

    Nice tuts, thx :D

  • http://newarts.at Drazen Mokic

    Really useful, thanks

  • http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/masking-photoshop/#respond Niketa

    How to do masking in photoshop CS3?

  • http://camowam.blogspot.com Cams

    I love your tutorials. Keep it coming. :)

  • Jolanda

    Martin, thank you for your great tuts!
    I’m an absolut beginner in Photoshop and I’ve learned a lot from these lessons. In this tut however, there’s something that I can’t figure out:
    When you’ve created an adjustmentlayer, you ad a stroke, which is white.
    When I try to do so, I get a thin black line instead of a white stroke. My settings are yust like yours in your window, so what am I doing wrong?

  • http://web.me.com/esp08fotos Eagle

    Explained very well and two examples ! — fantastic sharing. No end to learning. You have a great style for teaching.
    I use CS5 extended suite, LR3 etc Mac 2 quad core processors 32 gb ram….sweet .
    Thank you.

  • Carol Little

    Once again, thank you Martin! I love the second example. I plan on taking a photograph of a window and then putting views of different scenes in the same window. Thank you for all the tutorials and for leaving them on site so I can go back and watch again when I forget how to do something!

  • vijay rawat

    THANKS…VERY NICE MASKING STYLE

  • Paul

    I am going to teach graphic design to high school students in Tucson, Arizona and I am rusty. Spending time in architecture and the world of physical art has taken me away from Photoshop/Illustrator/etc.

    Your videos are not only well produced but you have a very professional way of presenting your material. Finally, someone has described masks in a way that is understandable.

    Thank you for your work.

    Paul

  • http://www.facebook.com/h.farazmukhtar Hafiz Faraz Mukhtar

    Wonderful tutorial you teach so well ..

  • http://www.flightsmith.com Dick

    Thanks for making the material so understandable when everyone else makes it sound so difficult.

  • Tomo

    Thank you for the tutorial. Being a Photoshop newbie, I find it very useful and helpful.