Help
signature. Overuse of the erase and undo tools can get extremely boring, and often rather time consuming, so what's
the solution? Layer masking of course. The beauty of layer masking is that it doesn't just work for adding contrast; it
can be used as a replacement for the eraser, too, which makes selective sharpening that much easier, and means
that you can erase parts of layers without worrying about getting rid of too much. Another problem with the eraser
tool is that if you erase something, and start work on other layers, it's impossible to get back what you erased
without undoing everything you'd done afterwards. With layer masking, all you have to do is brush a little white.
So how exactly does layer masking work?
That's what this tutorial is for, isn't it?
First, you just need to grab your signature. I'll be using gp1's Evangeline Lilly tag, the inspiration for this tutorial.
Convert this signature into just one layer, by right clicking on it, selecting 'copy visible' and then pressing ctrl+v, or
whichever other method you prefer for pasting. Paste it into a new layer.
Then right click on the new layer and select 'add layer mask'. Leave it at the default settings.
In order for you to understand layer masking a little better, black is the equivalent of full transparancy and white, the
equivalent of full opacity. This means that if you brush black over a specific area on the layer mask, it will disappear.
If you brush white over it afterwards, it'll be visible again. Basically, it's like erasing, but with a much easier way to
undo the changes.
So, making sure the layer itself is selected, boost your contrast. Then click on the white box beside the layer
thumbnail, and brush, in black, over the area you don't want to be affected by the contrast boost.
See how the face is not affected by the contrast, but everything else is?
If you've gone overboard with the black brushing, all it takes is some white brushing to revert it back to the original
state.
It's honestly that easy.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
