How to Create a Mask in Photoshop

How to Create a Mask in Photoshop
Hi, I'm Gary for Expert Village. Now our image has two layers: it has our background, and it has our photograph. What we're going to do now is create an effect called a mask. Just like a mask works by covering up a surface, and the only thing that comes--that is seen through the mask is what is dug out, we're going to do the same thing. We're going to cover up this image, and then we're going to dig out the layer that's on top of it to bring out the image once again. So let's go ahead and apply that. We're going to go up here and click on layer, we're going to click on add layer mask, and we're going to choose hide all. Once we choose hide all, we see that the photograph disappeared, and is now behind the background layer, or the first layer. So now we want to go ahead and dig out, like a mask, we want to go ahead and dig out from this layer to reveal what's underneath, which is our picture. So we're going to use the brush tool to do that. So we click on the brush tool once again, but this time we're going to use a brush that is a very soft brush, and we're going to use--I'm going to use a sixty-five point brush, which is quite large, it's going to give us a nice big circle, but it's also going to help me create a nice feathering effect, which you'll see which will create a nice soft effect when the picture comes out from the bottom. The other thing we have to make sure, is that the color white is chosen for the foreground color, and we also want to make sure that our layer, the top layer is selected, which is basically the photograph. And then I just start going ahead and clicking a little bit, and we see that the layer, the photograph actually starts coming out, and it has a nice feathered, soft touch to it. I just go around and click a little bit, and I don't have to click on the whole image, I just want to click on the main part that needs to be seen, which is basically the hands and the flowers, and from there I also want to make sure that I'm leaving enough room for my text. And once I see that the image that--the part of the image that I want to come through is there, I'm going to apply one more effect, which is the opacity tool. I'm going to make sure that layer is selected again, and opacity just makes something more of a opaque, clear look to it. And right now, the opacity is set to a hundred percent. I'm going to just scroll it down, and I'll put it down to about, let's say a little under fifty percent, and if I go back to my image, I see that now the image is kind of like a clouded--clouded-over effect to it, which is kind of nice for just the type of business card that we're creating for the wedding image. So we'll leave it at that, and now we have our background, and the image has a nice, soft touch to it, and we're ready to add our text to the business card.