Especially when using actions, having full control over the outcome is important. Very important. That’s where layer masks come in. It’s a simple but invaluable technique that I use in probably 85% of my editing. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that most of my actions and editing involve a layer mask. And here’s how you work with them.

The Editing:

When you create a basic action or apply an editing technique, you can expect it to look great on one photo, but not so great on another. Especially when using an action or editing technique that saturates your colors; the well known color pop, you need more control over what it is you’re doing. In child and food photography both, you will often see highly saturated colors. It’s a personal preference, I think. It will look good on some photos, but I use it sparingly.

There’s nothing wrong with a few minor tweaks—making grass or vegetables look a tad more fresh green and crispy, and lightly enhancing an already blue sky—but in my humble opinion your grass, veggies and skies are not supposed to be fluorescent green or blue. It just screams “fake” to me and it makes me want to cringe when I see it. Here’s how I boost my colors in a slightly more natural way.

 

How to do it: 

This is my SOOC photo. I love the different colors and exposure in the image a lot, but I do want to bring out the colors just a tad more. Liven things up a little you know? The crayon can definitely use a boost.

 

So first I run my Sunlight Touch Up action. You can skip this step if you like.

 

Note that you can always tone the sunlight touch up effect down by clicking the triangle in your layers palette. This will show you a slide allowing you to adjust the opacity of the entire layer.

 

I love the effect such a simple and minor tweak can have on a photo. It just looks fresher and more vibrant without making the skin-tone look unnatural. But I still want to make the crayon colors pop just a tad more.

 

So I click on the black/white – yin/yang type of circle at the bottom of the layers palette. These are your adjustments layers.

 

This will open up a multitude of options. We’ll address each and everyone of them in later postings, but right now I’m looking for a color boost. So I choose a simple Hue/Saturation layer.

 

This will open up your Hue/Saturation box. I seldom to never adjust the hue, but I did crank up the saturation to +30 and I gave the lightness a +5 tweak. You can use a higher saturation for a stronger effect, if you like.

 

This will create a new Hue/Saturation layer right on top of your sunlight touch up layer. Or on top of your background layer if you didn’t run the sunlight action first. See the white box? That’s photoshop immediately adding a layer mask.

 

Layer masks are fabulous things! It’s a very simple way to hide or expose selective parts of a photo or editing without doing anything to the actual photo/adjustment layer. Think of it as an extra edit layer on top of a layer. Using only black and white colors, you either hide or expose specific parts of your editing.

 

Now the saturation gave me the exact crayon color boost I was looking for. Nothing dramatic or fluorescent, just a nice color pop. At least on my screen! Unfortunately, it also made the skin tone pop up. Now an orange skin isn’t a bad thing if you’re a compulsive tanner or an Oempaloempa. But it just doesn’t look good on a little boy. Or a little girl, for that matter.

 

You saw how the layer mask added a little white box, right? It means you see the edited photo, but the layer mask gives you a chance to selectively hide part of the editing. Because it’s a white box, you will have to start painting with black in order to hide things.

In the toolbar on the left of the screen, select the brush tool.

 

This will give you three options. Choose your brush tool.

 

The toolbar at the top of your screen is now showing you the brush tool and the settings you can use for it. I’ve set the opacity and flow to 50%.

 

Pressing D on your keyboard will quickly reset your foreground and background colors to default; black and white.

 

Right above the color boxes (in the leftside toolbar), there’s a little switch arrow. If you press it, the back and foreground colors will switch. Press it once to get black on top.

 

Always make sure it’s the layer mask you’re working on and not the photo or adjustment layer. Just to be sure; click on the white square once to select it.

 

I started ‘painting’ on the skin so the Hue/Saturation editing would be removed from it. You can undo any black paint errors by simply switching colors and painting over the black with white again. And vice versa, of course.

 

In the white layer mask box, you can see the parts you’ve been painting black.

 

So now I still have the crayon color pop, but the skintone is back to normal.

 

This is the standard layer mask technique. This way you remove the editing from the photo. In order to show you another way to use layer masks, we’ll have to remove the old layer mask and create a new one. You can add layermasks to virtually anything (including action layers and groups) this way.

 

Select the layer mask and click on the trashcan at the bottom of your layers palette.

 

Choose to delete your layer mask. I have the edited photo, orange skin and all, back in front of me now.

 

Select the white circle at the bottom of your layers palette. That’s your layer mask button. Also known as a vector mask.

 

 
This will add a new, fresh layer mask. Still white now, but we’ll change that.

 

Now press Ctrl I (CMD-I for Mac) on your keyboard. This will turn the white square completely black.

 

Where the white layer mask allowed you to hide effects using a black brush, the black layer mask hides all the editing, allowing you to paint it back in using a white brush. This will give you an amazing control over specific parts you want to show.

 

Switch your back & foreground color again via the switch arrow.

 

Because painting with black on black won’t do an awful lot. White will!

 

Now it’s time to bring some color back in. I’ve started painting back the crayon saturation and the color on the street.

 

Until I ended up with precisely the saturation I’ve wanted and where I wanted it to be.

 

Both techniques will get you where you want to go. But sometimes a Ctrl-I (Invert) is simply easier to work with and a little more precise.