The Layers panel lets you manipulate your layers in all kinds of ways, but first you need to understand a few more of the panel’s cryptic icons. Some of the things you can do with layers may seem obscure when you first read about them, but once you actually use layers, you’ll quickly see why these options exist. The next few sections explain how to manipulate layers in several different ways: hide them, group them together, change the way you see them, and combine them.
You can turn layers’ visibility off and on at will, which is tremendously useful. If the image you’re working on has a busy background, for example, it’s hard to see what you’re doing when working on a particular layer. Making the Background layer invisible can help you focus on the layer you’re interested in. To turn off a layer’s visibility, in the Layers panel, click the eye icon to the layer’s left. To make the layer visible again, click the spot where the eye icon was.
Your choices for layer visibility aren’t limited to on and off. You can create immensely cool effects by adjusting the opacity of your layers. In other words, you can make a layer partially transparent so that what’s underneath it shows through.
To adjust a layer’s opacity, click the layer in the Layers panel, and then either:
Double-click the Opacity box, and then type in the percentage of opacity you want.
Click the triangle to the right of the Opacity box and then drag the pop-out slider, or put your cursor on the word “Opacity” and scrub (drag) left for less opacity or right for more. (Figure 6-9 explains the advantage of scrubbing.) If you’d like to experiment with creating Fill and Adjustment layers (Adding Fill and Adjustment Layers) and changing their modes and opacity, download daisies.jpg from this book’s Missing CD page at www.missingmanuals.com.
Figure 6-9. You can watch the opacity of your layer change on the fly if you drag your cursor back and forth over the word “Opacity.” Blend modes (page 198) often give the best effect if you adjust the opacity of their layers.
When you create a layer by pressing Shift+Ctrl+N/Shift+⌘+N or choosing Layer→New→Layer, you can set the new layer’s opacity in the New Layer dialog box that appears. If you create a new layer by clicking the Layers panel’s New Layer icon, then you need to Alt-click/Option-click that icon to bring up the New Layer dialog box so you can set the opacity.
Note
You can’t change a Background layer’s opacity. You first have to convert it to a regular layer; The Background explains how.
If you’ve gotten a layer just perfect and you don’t want to accidentally change it, you can lock that layer to protect you from yourself. Locking keeps you from changing a layer’s contents.
To lock everything on a layer so you can’t make any changes to it, make sure the layer is active and then click the “Lock all” icon (the dark gray padlock at the bottom of the Layers panel). A dark gray padlock appears in the Layers panel to the right of the layer’s name, and the “Lock all” icon shows a dark gray outline around it. Now if you try to paint on that layer or use any other tools on it, your cursor turns into a No symbol (a red circle with a diagonal line through it) to remind you that you can’t edit that layer. To unlock the layer, just click the “Lock all” icon at the bottom of the panel again.
Note
Locking a layer only keeps you from editing that layer. It doesn’t stop you from flattening it or merging it into another layer, or from cropping your image.
If you want, you can also lock only the transparent parts of a layer—helpful when you want to modify an object that sits atop a transparent layer, like the seashell in Figure 6-10. When you do that, the transparent parts of your layer stay transparent no matter what you do to the rest of it.
Figure 6-10. After you’ve isolated an object on its own layer, you may want to paint only on that object—and not on the transparent portion of the layer. Elements lets you lock the transparent part of a layer, making it easy to paint just the object. Left: On a regular layer, paint goes wherever your brush does. Right: With the layer’s transparency locked, the brushstroke stops at the edge of the seashell, even though the brush cursor (the circle) is now on the transparent part of the layer.
To lock the transparent parts of a layer, select the layer, and then, at the bottom of the Layers panel, click the little “Lock transparent pixels” checkerboard. (It’s grayed out if your image doesn’t have any transparent parts.) When you do this, a light gray padlock appears in the Layers panel to the right of the layer’s name, and the checkerboard icon displays a tiny border, but you have to look very hard to see it. To unlock the layer, just click the checkerboard again.
At the top of the Layers panel is a drop-down menu that usually says “Normal” (or, in the New Layer dialog box, “Mode: Normal”). This is your blend mode setting. When used with layers, blend modes control how the objects on a layer combine, or blend, with the objects on the layer beneath it. By using different blend modes, you can make your image lighter or darker, or even make it look like a poster, with just a few bold colors in it. Blend modes can also control how some tools—those with Blend Mode settings—change your image. Tweaking a tool’s blend mode can sometimes dramatically change your results.
Blend modes are an awful lot of fun once you understand how to use them. They can help you fix under- or overexposed photos and create all kinds of special visual effects. You can also use some tools, like the Brush tool, in different blend modes to achieve different effects. The most common blend mode is Normal, in which everything you do behaves just the way you’d expect: An object shows its regular colors, and paint acts just like, well, paint.
Burning has lots more about how to use blend modes. For now, take a look at Figure 6-11, which shows how you can totally change the way a layer looks just by changing its blend mode.
Not every blend mode makes a visible change to every image. Some of them may seem to do nothing; that’s to be expected. It just means that you don’t have a condition in your image that responds to that particular mode change. See The High-Pass Filter for one example of a situation where a mode change makes an enormous difference.
Figure 6-11. This photo of cassia flowers has a Pattern Fill layer over it, showing three different blend modes. In Normal blend mode at 100-percent opacity, the pattern would completely hide the leaves, but by changing the blend mode and opacity of the pattern layer, you can create very different looks. (Page 218 has more about Pattern layers.) The modes shown here are Normal (top), Linear Dodge (bottom left), and Hard Mix (bottom right). Notice how Dissolve gives a grainy effect and Hard Mix produces a vivid, posterized effect.
One of the truly amazing things you can do with Elements is move layers around. You can change the order in which layers are stacked so that different objects appear in front of or behind each other. For example, you can position one object behind another if they’re both on their own layers. In the Layers panel, just grab a layer and drag it to where you want it.
Tip
Remember, you’re always looking down onto the layer stack when you view your image, so moving something up in the Layers panel’s list moves it toward the front of the picture.
Figure 6-12 shows the early stages of the garden party invitation from Figure 6-1. The potted plants are already in place, and the bench was brought in from another image. But the bench came in at the top of the layer stack, in front of the flowers. To put the bench behind the plants, simply drag the bench layer below the plants layer in the Layers panel.
Figure 6-12. Top: When you bring a new element into an image, it comes in on top of the active layer. In this case, that made the bench the front object. Bottom: Move the new layer down in the stack, and it appears behind the objects on layers above it. In this example, the bench moves behind the plants.
Note
Background layers are the only kind of layer you can’t move. If you want to put Background layer in another spot in the layer stack, first convert it to a regular layer (The Background), and then move it.
You can also move layers by going to Layer→Arrange, and then choosing one of these commands:
Bring to Front (Shift+Ctrl+]/Shift-⌘-]) sends the selected layer to the top of the stack so the layer’s contents appear in your image’s foreground.
Bring Forward (Ctrl+]/⌘-]) moves the layer up one level in the Layers panel, so it appears one step closer to the front of your image.
Send Backward (Ctrl+[/⌘-[) moves the layer down one level so it’s one step farther back in the image.
Send to Back (Shift+Ctrl+[/Shift-⌘-[) puts the layer directly above the Background layer so it appears as far back as possible.
Reverse (no keyboard shortcut) switches two layers’ locations in the stack. You have to select two layers in the panel (by Ctrl-clicking/⌘-clicking them, for example) before using this command.
Tip
These commands (except Reverse) are also available from the Move tool’s Options bar or by right-clicking/Control-clicking in your photo when the Move tool is active. As a matter of fact, the Move tool can be a great way to rearrange layers in your image, as the next section explains.
Using the Move tool, you can select and arrange layers right in the image window, without trekking all the way over to the Layers panel. (If you need a refresher on Move tool basics, flip to The Move tool.) To arrange layers with the Move tool:
Activate the Move tool.
Click its icon in the Tools panel or press V.
Select the layer(s) you want to move.
As soon as you activate the Move tool, you see a bounding box (dotted lines) around the active layer in your image. As you move your cursor over the image, you see a blue outline around the layer the cursor is over—no matter how far down the layer stack the object is (see Figure 6-13). When you click to select the layer you want to move, a dotted-line bounding box appears around that layer. Shift-click to select multiple layers, and the bounding box expands to include everything you’ve selected. You can also drag a selection around multiple layers and choose them that way. (For instance, you could drag over all the balloons to move them as a group, so you don’t have to rearrange them afterward.)
Move the Layer.
You can do this by choosing Layer→Arrange, clicking the Options bar’s Arrange menu, or right-clicking inside the bounding box in the image. You see all the choices described in the previous section (“Bring to Front,” Bring Forward, and so on) except for Reverse, which is available only from the Layer menu. You can also use keyboard shortcuts (again, except for Reverse).
Note
If you selected multiple layers, you may find that some of the commands are grayed out (that is, you can’t choose them). If that’s a problem, just click elsewhere in the image to deselect the layers, and then move the layers one at a time instead of as a group.
Figure 6-13. The Move tool lets you select objects from any layer, not just the active one. When you move the cursor over an object, you see a blue outline around its layer. Here, the coffee cup is the active layer (you can see the bounding box around it), but the Move tool is ready to select the pink balloon, even though it’s not on the active layer. If all these outlines annoy you, you can turn them off in the Options bar (via the Show Bounding Box and “Show Highlight on Rollover” checkboxes). If you want to force the Move tool to concentrate only on the active layer, then turn off Auto Select Layer in the Options bar.
You can easily arrange objects in an image thanks to the Move tool. The tool’s aligning feature arranges the items on each layer so that they line up straight along their top, bottom, left, or right edges, or through their centers. So, for example, if you align the top edges of your objects, then Elements makes sure that the top of each object is exactly in line with the others.
Tip
Don’t forget that you can set guidelines (Straighten Tool) to help you position objects just so in your image.
You’ll also find it a breeze to evenly distribute the spacing between multiple objects. The Move tool’s distribute feature spaces out objects, letting you choose edges or centers as a guide. If you distribute the top edges, for example, Elements makes sure there’s an even amount of space from the top edge of one object to another.
Note
Distributing objects is especially handy when you’re creating projects like those described in Chapter 15.
Aligning and distributing layers with the Move tool works much like rearranging layers:
Activate the Move tool.
Click its icon in the Tools panel or press V.
Select the objects you want to align.
This maneuver works only if each object is on its own layer. If you have multiple objects on one layer, then move them to their own layers one at a time by selecting each object, and then pressing Ctrl+Shift+J/⌘-Shift-J.
Shift-click inside the blue outline to select each layer you want to work with, or Shift-click or Ctrl-click/⌘-click in the Layers panel to select the layers you want.
Choose how you want to align or distribute the objects by selecting from the Options bar’s menus.
The Align and Distribute menus both give you the same choices: Top Edges, Vertical Centers, Bottom Edges, Left Edges, Horizontal Centers, and Right Edges. The little thumbnails next to each option show you how your objects will line up.
Note
You can apply as many different align and distribute commands as you like, as long as the layers you’re working with are still inside the bounding box. Figure 6-14 shows how these commands work.
What if you want to move several layers at once? For instance, in the garden party image back on Understanding Layers, two layers have potted plants in terra cotta pots in them. It’s kind of a pain to drag each one individually if you need to move them both in front of the bench. Fortunately, Elements gives you a way to keep your layers united.
Sometimes, you’ll want to move a couple of layers as a group, while still keeping the layers separate. In that case, you can link two or more layers together so they travel as a unit, as shown in Figure 6-15.
Figure 6-14. Top: Each of these guitars is on its own layer, but they need to be tidied up if you want them in a neat stack. Bottom left: Here’s the result of selecting the guitars with the Move tool and then picking Align→Horizontal Center. As you see, the centers of the guitars are aligned, but they’re not evenly distributed. Bottom right: The guitars after a trip to Distribute→Vertical Centers. Note that they’re evenly spaced but still overlapping. That’s because Distribute doesn’t add any additional space between the outermost objects. If you want wider spacing between objects, then make sure they’re farther apart before you distribute them.
Figure 6-15. Shift-click or Ctrl+click/⌘-click to select the layers you want to link, and then click the little chain icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to link them together. The chain icon appears to the right of each layer’s name to indicate that those layers are linked.
If you want to unlink layers, then simply click one of the linked layers in the Layers panel, and then click the same chain icon you used to link them.
You can also merge the layers (covered in the next section) into one layer if you want. Or you can use the layer selection choices described in the box below and skip linking altogether; as long as your layers all stay selected, they travel as a group. But the advantage of linking is that your layers stay associated until you unlink them—you don’t need to worry about accidentally clicking somewhere else in the panel and losing your selection group.
An even more powerful way to combine layers is to group them together using a clipping mask. This technique sounds complex, but it’s actually quite easy and very powerful. With this kind of grouping, one layer (the clipping mask layer) influences the other layers it’s grouped with.
Note
This technique used to be called “grouping,” but starting with Elements 8 Adobe changed it to “clipping,” which is what it’s called is in Photoshop. The behavior is exactly the same as the old grouped layers—only the name is different.
Clipping layers isn’t anything like linking them. You can probably understand the process most easily by looking at Figure 6-16, which shows how to crop an image on one layer using the shape of an object on another layer.
Figure 6-16. This image began life as a picture of a seashell on one layer and an ocean scene on the layer above it. At first, the ocean image totally hid the shell, but interesting things happen when you clip the layers together: The ocean layer automatically gets cropped to the shape of the bottom layer, the seashell. The fancy way to say that is the shell now acts as the clipping mask for the ocean image. The tiny downward-bent arrow just above the cursor in the Layers panel indicates that the ocean layer is clipped.
Once the layers are clipped together, you can still slide the top layer around with the Move tool to reposition it so that you see exactly the part of it that you want. So in Figure 6-16, for example, the ocean layer was positioned so the breaking wave showed in the bottom of the shell shape.
To clip two layers together, position the two layers one above the other in the Layers panel by dragging. (Put the one you want to act as the mask below the other image.) Then choose Layer→Create Clipping Mask or press Ctrl+G/⌘-G. Then make the top layer (of the two you want to group) the active layer.
You can also clip right in the Layers panel: Hold down Alt/Option, and then, in the panel, move your cursor over the dividing line between the layers. When two linked circles appear by your cursor, click once and Elements groups your layers together with a clipping mask.
If you get tired of the layer grouping or you want to delete or change one of the layers, then select Layer→Release Clipping Mask or press Ctrl+G/⌘-G again to undo the grouping.
By now, you probably have some sense of how useful layers are. But there’s a downside to having layers in your image: They take up a lot of storage space, especially if you have lots of duplicate layers. (In other words, layers make files bigger.) Fortunately, you don’t have to keep layers in your files forever. You can reduce a file’s size quite a bit—and sometimes also make things easier to manage—by merging layers or flattening the image.
Sometimes you may have two or more separate layers that really could be treated as one layer, like the plants in Figure 6-17. You aren’t limited to just linking those layers together; once you’ve got everything arranged just right, you can merge them together into one layer. Also, if you want to copy and paste your image, standard copy and paste commands typically copy only the top layer, so it helps to get everything into one layer, at least temporarily. You’ll probably merge layers quite often when you’re working with multilayer files (for example, when you’ve got multiple objects that you want to edit simultaneously).
You have a couple of different ways to merge layers, depending on what’s active in your image. You can get to either of the following commands by heading up to the Layers menu, clicking the Layers panel’s upper-right button (the four-lined square), or by using keyboard shortcuts:
Merge Down (Ctrl+E/⌘-E) combines the active layer with the layer immediately beneath it. If the layer just below the active layer is hidden, then you don’t see this option in the list of choices.
Merge Visible (Shift+Ctrl+E/Shift-⌘-E) combines all the visible layers into one layer. If you want to combine layers that are far apart, then just temporarily turn off the visibility of the ones in between (and any other layers that you don’t want to merge) by clicking their eye icons.
Figure 6-17. Those potted plants again. If you no longer need two separate plant layers, then you can merge the layers together. Left: The Layers panel with the two separate layers for the red flowering plants. Right: The plant layers merged into one layer.
It’s important to understand that once you merge layers and then save and close your file, you can’t just unmerge them. While your file is still open, you can use any of the undo commands, but once you exceed the undo limit you’ve set in Preferences (Escape Routes), you’re stuck with your merged layers.
Tip
The box below explains another way to combine all your layers while still keeping separate copies of the individual layers.
Sometimes, when your layer contains text or shapes drawn with the Shape tool, you can’t merge the layer right away; Elements asks you to simplify the layer first. Simplifying means converting its contents to a raster object—a bunch of pixels, subject to the same resizing limitations as any photo. So, for example, after you rasterize a Text layer, then you can apply filters to the text or paint on it, but you can’t edit the words anymore. (See Polygon for more about simplifying and working with shapes, and Chapter 14 to learn about working with text.)
While layers are simply swell when you’re working on an image, they’re a headache when you want to share your image, especially if you’re sending it to a photo-printing service (their machines usually don’t understand layered files). Even if you’re printing at home, the large size of a multilayer file can make it take forever to print. And if you plan to use your image in other programs, very few non-Adobe programs are totally comfortable with layered files, so you may get some odd results.
In these cases, you can squash everything in your picture into a single layer. You do this by flattening your image: Go to Layer→Flatten Image or, in the Layers panel, click the four-lined-square and choose Flatten Image. Or, to keep your original intact, go to File→Save As, and in the Save As dialog box, turn off the Layers checkbox and turn on the “As a Copy” checkbox before clicking the Save button.
There’s no keyboard shortcut for flattening because it’s something you don’t want to do by accident. Like merging, flattening is a permanent change. Cautious Elements veterans always do a Save As (instead of a plain Save) before flattening. That way you have a flattened copy and a working copy with the layers intact, just in case. Organizer version sets (File Formats Elements Understands) can help you here, too, because they let you save different states of your image, so you can have both a layered and a flattened version.
Note
Flattening creates a Background layer out of the existing layers in your image, which means that you lose transparency, just as with a regular Background layer. If you want to create a single layer with transparency, then use the Merge Visible command (Merging and Flattening Layers) instead.
Elements gives you an incredibly powerful tool for getting the most out of your layers: layer masks. What are they and why is this such a big deal?
As their name implies, layer masks let you hide (or “mask”) parts of layers. Back in Chapter 5, you learned about selecting parts of photos and using the Magic Extractor to cut objects out of the background, and earlier in this chapter you learned how to cut or copy something to a new layer. Those are all fine techniques, but if next week you change your mind about exactly what you want to include, you have to start all over again. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just make the parts of your photo that you don’t want vanish, and then make them reappear later on if you change your mind?
Layer masks let you do exactly that: They’re like a cloak of invisibility for your layer, and it’s totally up to you how much shows. When you mask part of a layer, the visible part looks just like an object that’s been cut out and surrounded by transparency, but the rest of the layer is all still there—it’s just hidden away. What’s more, showing or hiding more of what’s on the layer is as easy as painting on it, and there’s no statute of limitations—you can come back to the layer and adjust things whenever you want. Figure 6-18 helps explain why this is such a great way to work.
Figure 6-18. Left: Here’s part of that flyer from back in Figure 6-1. The blue pot in the front looks right at home, doesn’t it? Right: Here you can see that the blue pot actually came from this poolside photo. To isolate the pot, a layer mask was placed over the rest of this photo, hiding it. (The mask was turned off here to show you the original image.) If you wanted to, you could go back and edit the mask to reveal more of the photo or change what the mask covers if, for instance, you decide you’d rather use one of the bushes behind the pot in your flyer instead.
In full Photoshop, layer masks have been de rigueur for all sorts of changes for years now because they’re incredibly powerful and easy to use. The only downside to layer masks is that the extra content makes your file somewhat larger, but that’s a small price to pay for so much flexibility.
Note
Adjustment and Fill layers (which you’ll learn about in the next section) come with layer masks already attached to them; you don’t have to do anything to add them.
Layer masks are a tad confusing at first, but you’ll quickly get the hang of them and learn how much they can do for you. The easy way to remember what they do is to think of them as Halloween masks for your layers: Whatever is behind the mask is hidden, while you can see everything that’s not covered by the mask.
You can add a layer mask to any layer except a Background layer. Here’s how:
Make sure the layer you want to mask is active.
If it’s not, click it in the Layers panel.
Add a layer mask.
You have several choices for how your mask should start off:
Empty, showing all the layer’s contents. To create a “blank” layer mask (in other words, one that starts out not covering anything in your layer), just click the “Add layer mask” button at the bottom of the Layers panel (it looks like a circle within a square; you can see it back in Figure 6-5) or choose Layer→Layer Mask→Reveal All. When you do, a pure white mask thumbnail appears in your Layers panel to the right of the layer’s thumbnail.
Filled, completely hiding the layer. To create a “full” layer mask that covers everything in your layer, Alt-click/Option-click the “Add layer mask” button or choose Layer→Layer Mask→Hide All. Elements add a black mask thumbnail to your Layers panel. You’d use this option if you wanted to hide most of the layer. That way, you can just reveal (“unmask”) the areas you want to keep visible, like the eyes and lips of a portrait, for example. That’s faster than painting over everything else in the layer. (You’ll learn how to edit layer masks in a moment so you can hide exactly what you want.)
With only a selection visible. To hide all but certain areas of your layer, select the parts you want to keep visible and then click the “Add layer mask” button or go to Layer→Layer Mask→Reveal Selection. Elements masks everything but your selection, leaving only the selected area(s) visible. The result looks exactly like you used the Magic Extractor on your layer; the difference is that everything else is still there—it’s just hidden.
With only a selection hidden. If you only want to hide a few bits of your layer, select those parts and then Alt-click/Option-click the “Add layer mask” button or go to Layer→Layer Mask→Hide Selection and Elements hides the selected area(s).
You’ll learn how to edit the area covered by a mask in a moment, but first here are a few other useful things you can do with a layer mask:
Disable it. If you want to see your layer without the mask, in the Layers panel, just right-click/Control-click its thumbnail and choose Disable Layer Mask, or go to Layer→Layer Mask→Disable. Everything that the mask was hiding reappears and Elements puts a big red X over the mask’s thumbnail to remind you that it’s disabled.
Merge it into the layer. If you decide that you really, really don’t need to edit a layer mask anymore, right-click/Control-click its thumbnail in the Layers panel and choose Apply, or go to Layer→Layer Mask→Apply, and the mask becomes a permanent, uneditable part of the layer it’s attached to. Basically, doing this puts you in the same situation you’d be in if you used the “Layer via Copy” command or if you’d selected something and then deleted the rest of the layer (meaning you lose all the flexibility you get by using a layer mask), so this isn’t something you’ll do often.
Unlink it. When you add a layer mask, a little chain appears in the Layers panel between the layer’s thumbnail and the mask’s thumbnail to indicate that they work as a unit. But if you unlink them, you can move the mask separately from the layer itself. This is handy when you’ve got a mask the size and shape of the area you want to see perfectly masked out, only it’s not quite over the right part of the image, for example. In that case, unlink the mask from the layer so you can drag the mask without moving the layer’s contents. To do that, just click the chain icon or go to Layer→Layer Mask→Unlink. The chain disappears and you can now use the Move tool to rearrange things. To relink them, click the spot where the chain icon was or choose the menu item again (which now says “Link”).
Delete it. To get rid of a layer mask and return the layer to its unmasked state, in the Layers panel, right-click/Control-click the mask’s thumbnail and choose Delete Layer Mask, or go to Layer→Layer Mask→Delete.
Now that you have a mask, it’s time to learn how to change the area it covers. You do this by simply painting on it with black or white. Painting with black increases the masked area; painting with white increases the visible area. “Black conceals and white reveals” is an old Photoshop saw that can help you remembering what each color does.
You can work on the mask by painting directly in the main image window, or make the layer mask visible and work in either of two special mask views, which are sometimes helpful when the objects in your image have tricky edges, or if you need to check for missed spots. Here’s the simplest way to make changes to the area covered by a layer mask:
Make sure the masked layer is the active layer.
If it isn’t, click it in the Layers panel. This step is important: If the masked layer isn’t active, you’ll add paint to the actual image.
In the Layers panel, click the layer mask’s thumbnail.
You tell Elements whether you want to work directly on the layer or on the layer mask by clicking the Layers panel thumbnail of the one you want. (You can tell which one is active because Elements puts an extra little outline around its thumbnail.) The Foreground and Background color squares change to black and white, respectively, as soon as you click the thumbnail. If for some reason they don’t, just press D.
Paint directly on your image.
Use the Brush tool to paint on the image. Paint an area black to hide it, or white to show it. Remember: black conceals and white reveals. (An easy way to switch between your Foreground and Background colors is to press X.)
You can also use the Selection tools the same way you would on any other selection to change the mask’s area. (See Chapter 5 if you need help making selections.) If you watch the layer mask’s thumbnail in the Layers panel, you’ll see that it changes to show where you’ve painted.
To make a layer mask visible in the main image window (rather than just as a thumbnail in the Layers panel), you simply click it in the Layers panel while holding down a key or two. Elements gives you a choice of two different ways to see the masked area, as shown in Figure 6-19. If you Alt-click/Option-click the mask’s thumbnail, you see the black layer mask (instead of your photo) in the image window. Add the Shift key when you click to see a red overlay on the photo instead of the black-and-white view. Press the same keys again while clicking the thumbnail to get back to a regular view of your image.
The black mask view shows only the mask itself, not your photo beneath it. This is a good choice when you want to check how clean the edges of your selection are. But if you’re adding or subtracting areas of your photo, choose the red-overlay view instead so you can see the objects in your photo as you paint over them. You can use the method described earlier to paint in either view.
Figure 6-19. Here are two different views of the layer mask from Figure 6-18. Left: To see the masked area in black, Alt-click/Option-click the layer mask’s thumbnail in the Layers panel. Right: To see the masked area in red, Alt+Shift-click/Option-Shift-click the mask’s thumbnail instead.
Tip
You can use shades of gray to adjust a layer mask’s transparency. Simply paint on your mask with gray to change the opacity of the area revealed on the layer. Paint with dark gray, for example, for a faint, ghosted effect, the sort of thing you might use to create a background for stationery. The darker the gray, the less shows through; the lighter the gray, the more what you’re painting shows through the mask.
Layer masks are incredibly powerful and this section has just covered the very basics, but there are literally thousands of different uses for them. You can paint the edges of your photo with grunge brushes, for instance, to created interesting image borders, or apply a black-to-white gradient to a layer mask to make the layer fade on one edge. There are entire books written about masking techniques, and once you get started you’ll want to explore more ways you can use this powerful tool to help your creativity soar. If you want to learn how to mask a particular object (like hair, say), just Google “mask hair photoshop” and you’ll get more tutorials than you could work through in a lifetime. Katrin Eismann’s Photoshop Masking & Compositing (New Riders Press) is one of the most complete books on the subject, although a fair amount of the book (like the parts about using the Pen tool) pertains only to Photoshop.