Comments on: Advanced Layer Mask Creation in Photoshop

By: Brian Auer

Brian Auer — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:40:21 +0000

If you create multiple masks as separate channels, you load one mask as a selection and add it to another mask. If I do a video on this stuff, I’ll be sure to include that too.

By: Charles

Charles — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:27:21 +0000

Ok. I’ve got it (maybe). So you’re creating the mask using the new (Lightness) document then moving (applying) it to the original. I forgot about Destination in the Duplicate dialog box.

What I’m wanting to do, and don’t know how, is create multiple masks with different selection methods and add them together to form one major mask Yeah, my pics are that bad!

Chas.

By: Brian Auer

Brian Auer — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:25:05 +0000

Hey Charles, thanks for the questions! It’s difficult to put Photoshop operations into words sometimes… this one could probably benefit from a video tutorial. As for your questions…

When you duplicate that Lightness channel, you have to make sure you duplicate it to a NEW document rather than on the original. Now when you go back to the original document, the last thing in your history tree should be the LAB conversion.

Also, when you duplicate that Lightness channel into a new document, it automatically pulls it in as Multichannel because you created that document with a single channel from the original photo.

Like I said, I should probably do a video tutorial on this to make it more clear.

By: Charles Boehm

Charles Boehm — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:50:44 +0000

“The lightness channel is going to contain the best quality information, but you can use one of the RGB/CMYK channels just the same. Now delete the LAB conversion in your history palette of the original image to go back to RGB without doing another conversion.”

Deleting LAB conversion in the History palette does revert back to RGB, but also deletes the lightness channel at the same time!??? Do you mean dragging the lightness channel to a new document and dragging that onto document number 1?

“In your new image, convert from Multichannel to Grayscale (Image >> Mode >> Grayscale). Now you should have one layer and one channel that look exactly the same.”

Multichannel??? I’ve never had an image in multichannel. I converted from RGB/8bit to grayscale. The closest I can get to what you describe is a document with one layer and two channels, a gray channel and a lightness channel that was dragged, resized and dragged again.

Wish you could have been more clear in your description because it seems like a useful method.

Best,
Charles

By: Brian Auer

Brian Auer — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:20:23 +0000

You’re certainly welcome for the tips! You’re right, the ol’ blown out sky look just won’t do, and this is one way to take care of it.

photographyVoter.com rules! digg sucks!

By: Andrew Ferguson

Andrew Ferguson — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:28:55 +0000

Thanks for the tips!

This is really useful for avoiding that blown-out look to the sky in some outdoor shots.

Found you on photographyvoter.com btw