How to Work With Vector Masks in Photoshop
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How to Work With Vector Masks in Photoshop

on Jul 13th 2011 with 21 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: Adobe Photoshop CS5
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Estimated Completion Time: 14 Minutes

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 29 of 29 in the Photoshop Basix Session
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In Photoshop there are several types of masks at your disposal – vector masks and pixel masks. In today’s tutorial we will focus on vector masks. First, we will explain the difference between the two and then we will discuss the advantages of vector masks over pixel masks and how to use them effectively. If you would like to learn more about masks and paths, take a look at some of our previous tutorials explaining these basic tools. Let’s get started!

 
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By

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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  • Trevor

    Another great Tut, thanks and keep them coming

  • aaron

    Thank You!

  • http://www.foremancreative.com Chad

    Great tutorial. I enjoyed it very much. I particularly like the narrator’s accent.

    Good tool. I’ve never used a vector mask before so I learned something new. I didn’t even know they existed, but then again I’m still using CS4 so perhaps it’s a CS5 thang.

    • 7

      Vector masks have been around alot longer than that. Paths first showed up in 2.0 for Mac, in 1991. Vector shapes first appeared in 6.0 for Mac & Windows in 2000. I found all that via wikipedia mind you, so some of it may be inaccurate. No word in the article about when masking abilities were added though.

  • http://www.p-healthdirection.blogspot.com/ sanowar

    how beautiful.

  • http://www.футболмастер.рф/ alex

    There are a lots of ways how you can use the mask. This tutorial is very useful. Thanks

  • Hannah

    Best PS tutorials on the net, love the accent, can’t wait for the new series! – any chance you could do a basix tutorial on creating realistic ground cast shadows from people and buildings etc? Thanks.

  • Daniel

    Can’t get enough of that pen tool, I like seeing it used in different ways by different people, I learn something every time. Not sure where I’ll use vector masks but as time passes I develop new ways of solving problems and no doubt vector masks wil help at some stage.

  • shah faisal

    Awesome Awesome step by step g8 tutorial

  • http://pica-ae.deviantart.com pica-ae

    i love vector masks in PS! especially since they are so much easier to edit than pixel masks. In some cases vector shapes dont make much sense (hair, blurred corners), but they are defintely a great tool!

  • http://www.lenmoserphotography.com/ Len Moser

    Thanks for sharing this. I’ve never used a vector mask, but I will try this next time.

  • http://www.aj-designs.co.uk/ Ash Scott

    Wow, Great tutorial Martin, Keep it up!

    Ash

  • Hulaz

    I had to do a double take at that image, thats the Sage in Gateshead round the corner, how random!

  • Linda C

    Love this series. So well done.

  • Tatyana

    Thanks for tutorial!

  • Cathy

    I am using Photoshop Version 8. Do I need to upgrade my copy or can I use layers and vector mask with it?

  • http://www.smashingwebarts.com ratnakar

    Great, I love this tutorial. It is quite interesting to know how mask vector can applied…

  • Vincent

    love your work!

  • http://www.alkabeergrafix.com/index.html Asim

    Thanks a lot for for this sharing………….!

  • SUSHIL

    Hey,
    I’m seeing any video on this page, even the last 7 or 8 tutorials of this session didn’t showed me any

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

      It is probably an issue on your end. Maybe your ISP blocks the video provider? Or maybe it’s a browser of connection issue?