Do you know the layer mask in Photoshop? In daily life, we often use an eraser to erase something we don’t need. But once we make a mistake, the mistake will be irreversible.
In Photoshop, layer mask helped us a lot. Use a layer mask to wipe off the background image to avoid damage to the original image. Even if you make a mistake, you can delete this mask and recreate it, and the original graphics will not be affected at all.
Does the picture above look good? If I told you this was made using Photoshop, would you be surprised by this? The production of this comic house mainly used the Layer Mask, the Surface Blur and the Multiply blending mode. Let’s get it started now!
- Open the Picture
1. Open the picture material and click the short-cut key—”CTRL+J” to copy a layer. Click the sixth signal in the lower right corner to create a new layer. Drag the layer to between the background and layer 1.
2. Click the fourth signal in the lower right corner. Click the solid color, and set the color to black.
3. Select layer 1 with the mouse, and click the third signal in the lower right corner to create a layer mask.
- Create a Layer Mask
4. At the bottom of the toolbar, we can see two color blocks. The upper color block represents the foreground color, and the lower color block represents the background color. Click on the background color block to set it to black.
5. Click on the mask thumbnail of layer 1 with mouse. Select the magic wand tool in the toolbar and set the tolerance value to 30 in the upper status bar.
- Using the Magic Wand Tool
6. Enlarge the picture. We can see that between the inside of the heart shape and the outside of the heart shape, some colors are quite different, and some colors are less different.
7. Choose a place with a big difference in color and click on the inner with the magic wand tool. At this time, we can find that the heart-shaped interior and exterior are separated by ant lines.
- Create a Selection Area
8. Continue to click the inner color along the edge line to pick out the part with larger color difference.
9. Note that if you make a mistake and frame the external part into the selection, use the short-cut key—”CTRL+Z” to undo the previous operation. Or, you can click on the history tool to undo the previous steps. But the history tool can only undo 40 steps at most, so don’t make mistakes as much as possible!
10. You can also make adjustments by adding and subtracting selections tools in the status bar.
- Fill the Layer Mask
11. After selecting, click the short-cut key—”CTRL Delete” to fill the selection area with black. In the layer panel, we can see that a small piece of black appears on the mask of layer 1, but the original material picture has not changed.
12. This is what the layer mask does. The layer mask is equivalent to a piece of glass. The white on the mask represents opacity and the black represents transparency. You can see the content of the layer below through the black part.
13. You might say that I can get this effect using an eraser. Yes, but be aware that if you use an eraser to damage the picture, it will be irreversible. If you use a layer mask, and you want to change the previous operation, just delete the mask directly. The original picture will not be affected at all!
14. Double-click the black square of the color file 1 in the layer panel on the right to change the color. You can see that the part we filled in black in layer mask just now changes as the color of the layer below changes.
- Pick Out the Heart-Shape Grass Wall
15. In the upper status bar, change the tolerance value to 10. Click on the part of the inner color with the less difference. Repeat the previous step until the entire heart shape is isolated.
16. If there are some parts in the middle that are not clean, change the foreground color to black, and use the brush tool to smear out the excess parts.
- Open the House Picture
17. Then, open the house picture material and use the move tool to move it in the grass wall file. Move layer 2 to between layer 1 and the color file 1 in the layer panel.
18. Use the short-cut key—”CTRL+T” to switch to free transform. Hold down shift and drag the corners of the border to make it scaled equally. Adjust the size and position of the picture so that it fits perfectly into the heart-shaped grass wall.
- Adjust It
19. Click “CTRL+J” to copy a house layer. Select the house picture below, and use the free transform tool to adjust its size and position to coincide with the heart-shaped grass wall.
- Add Filter
20. Click the filter in the menu bar, and select Blur—Surface Blur. Set the radius value to 100 and the threshold value to 50, and click OK.
21. Create a new layer on the Layer 2 copy. Click the gradient tool on the left toolbar, and click the color bar in the upper status bar. Double-click the symbol in the lower left corner of the color bar to select the color as white; double-click the symbol in the lower right corner of the color bar to select the color as light blue.
22. Click the radial gradient on the left side of the color bar. Then, drag the mouse from the middle of the canvas to the outside. After letting go, the layer is filled with gradient color.
- Modify the Blend Mode
23. Change the blending mode of layer 3 to multiply.
24. Click Image—Adjustment—Curve in the menu bar, and use the curve tool to adjust layer 2 to darken it.
- Save the Picture
25. Save the picture and you will get the comic house!
When using the magic wand tool, you may be troubled by the cumbersome operation. But this is just the beginning. When you are familiar with it, you can easily use it to process various pictures. You can adjust the tolerance according to the specific situation to meet different needs. As for how to adjust, it depends on your proficiency.
