Paint Shop Pro….Getting Acquainted with Masks

March 6th, 2008 PSP Instructors

We’re just about to start the new session, folks, and I’m looking forward to watching that “I can DO this!” lightbulb pop up over new heads, as well as seeing what new twists and turns students can extrapolate from our lessons. The creativity of some of our students never fails to amaze me…and to make me wonder, “Why on earth didn’t I think of that?”

We had a lot of fun exploring masks in some of our classes last session. What is a mask, you ask? Well, to put it simply, a mask is simply a layer made up of shades of gray all the way from purest white to darkest black that, when used as a mask layer on top of an image or photograph layer, hides portions that you want to “mask off”.

A mask is made up of 256 shades of gray, all the way from pure white to black. The darker the gray of the mask, the more transparent the layer associated with the mask will be. So black would be completely transparent, gray would be semi-transparent and white would be completely opaque.

Want to try it out and see it in action, as well as learn a nifty photographer’s trick?

Try this:

  1. Open Paint Shop Pro and select two photos that you think would look good blended together. Select each one, one at a time, and use Shift+D on each of them to make a copy, and then close the originals. (NEVER work on your originals, just in case….Never, never, never, never….)
  2. Select all of the smaller image and then paste it as a new layer over the other, or create a new raster layer on the first image and paste the smaller image as a selection wherever you think it would look best.
  3. To blend the two layers together, highlight the top layer in your layer palette, add a new mask layer on top of that, and then fill the mask layer with a black and white gradient of your choice. Remember, in Paint Shop Pro you can move the focal point of the gradient around to wherever you want it, and can choose a left-to-right, right-to-left, solar, etc., gradient, so select whichever is going to be best, according to where you placed your images.

You should now have a seamlessly integrated composite of your two photographs! You could, if you wanted to take the time, edit the gradient in use to make it show more, or less, of the underlying photo, clean up edges, etc., but we won’t get into that here.

Whether you want to create graphics for a website, create your own digitally painted masterpieces or bring old photographs back to life, Paint Shop Pro can do it all! Come join us and learn more about this fascinating program and its many uses in digital art, photography, and scrapbooking.

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