Applying a Layer Mask in Photoshop

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Jimmy Hartman on behalf of Expert Village. In this clip were going to be showing you how to use the layer mask to mask out the effect that we just applied and apply it only to a certain area. So to make it so that we can only see the effect only in this area. We need to apply our layer mask. On a layer mask anything that is painted black will not show through and anything white will. So well fill our layer with black first to completely erase the effect from the image and then well paint on what part of the effect we want to see. So well have black set as our background color already done. And then well go ahead and control key make sure your mask is selected hold the control key and hit back space that will fill that mask with black and it has made our entire effect disappear. So now I'm going to go on and paint on white what I want show through. Now you want to use settings with your brush since I only want soft edges so it blends with the original. Do that you use a soft brush my hardest is a 52 percent bring that down to all the way to two. Now when I apply my effect it will soften as it goes around my edges it will be a gray, gray is partially transparent. So I'm going to go ahead and start painting that effect on and kind of bring out those greens. Now don't be afraid if it doesn't look to good when you first do it we can adjust this later. You just want to get the layers colored green. Ok that's alright for now. You can see we definitely got some of those greens but maybe it's a little to much so well go ahead and make sure the mask is selected and well change the opacity of that mask now bringing the opacity down essentially is making everything white more towards grey less visible so I'm going to go ahead and slide this down a little bit and that's alright we don't want to much green in there because it's not realistic. I'm going to leave that so you can see it."