{"id":1658,"date":"2011-07-27T16:04:15","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T16:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/photoshop-tip-using-masks-to-create-a-cutout-effect\/"},"modified":"2011-07-27T16:04:15","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T16:04:15","slug":"photoshop-tip-using-masks-to-create-a-cutout-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/photoshop-tip-using-masks-to-create-a-cutout-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Photoshop Tip: Using Masks to Create a Cutout Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mystified by the mask tool? Our quick tutorial shows how to use it to make a cool cutout type effect.
\nFirst, the basics: A mask is a grayscale, pixel image that\u2019s attached to a layer in Photoshop. The mask tells Photoshop how much of the layer to display. White pixels on a mask will display at 100%, black pixels at 0%, and grayscale pixels at a transparency.<\/p>\n

To show how it works, we\u2019re going to start with Bigstock image 20393000<\/a>, by AISPIX. Suppose we want to apply a screen of type between this laughing man and the wall behind him, with the type fading away as it rises toward the top of the image.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9AISPX<\/a><\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s use the type tool to enter the text we want on the image.<\/p>\n

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Next, we\u2019ll select our type layer from the Layers pallet and click on the Add Layer Mask button.<\/p>\n

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To make the next step easier, we\u2019re going to fill our mask layer in with all black (shift-F5). This will turn the type layer invisible for now, but don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll get it back in a second.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re going back to our original layer, where we\u2019re going to use the magic wand tool to select the grey background behind the man.<\/p>\n

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With that selected, we\u2019re going to click on the gradient tool, and make sure it\u2019s set to fade from black to white.<\/p>\n

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Then, on our layers pallet, we select the mask from our type layer again.<\/p>\n

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With that mask selected, we\u2019ll use the gradient tool to drag a gradient fill into the background space we\u2019ve selected. Drag from black to white vertically down the page, holding the shift key. That produces exactly the result we were looking for.<\/p>\n

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Since that type layer is still editable, we can go in and change the color and content of that layer any time we want, without needing to redo our cutout.<\/p>\n

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And we\u2019re done! Now you know how to use the mask tool to create a fading or cutout effect\u2014without damaging the content of a layer.<\/p>\n

Bonus: In regular editing, Photoshop doesn\u2019t show you the mask itself. It only shows what layer looks like with the mask applied. However, you can see and edit the mask itself just by clicking on the mask thumbnail in the Layers panel using Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac).<\/p>\n

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Mystified by the mask tool? Our quick tutorial shows how to use it to make a cool cutout type effect. First, the basics: A mask is a grayscale, pixel image that\u2019s attached to a layer in Photoshop. The mask tells Photoshop how much of the layer to display. White pixels on a mask will display…<\/p>\nRead More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[58,179,460,461,462,463],"class_list":["post-1658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tutorials","tag-photoshop","tag-tips","tag-masks","tag-cutout","tag-cutout-effect","tag-using-masks-to-create-a-cutout-effect","col-sm-6"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcS8aA-qK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}