Basic Layers
page twoSelect the Second layer. Click the New Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette, as we did previously. This time, pick Levels from the menu that appears. Don’t select the Group with Previous Layer option; leave it unchecked. In the Levels dialog box, move the sliders, as shown below. Do this by dragging on the little triangles below the histogram (the thing that looks like a mountain range). Drag the left and right triangles inward. Leave the center one alone.
Don’t make this kind of Levels adjustment to an image intended to be realistic; you can see that I am throwing away image data by moving the sliders well within the image area. Once you have added a Levels adjustment layer to a layer, you will see a new layer as shown below. The thumbnail that looks like a histogram with a slider can be double clicked at any time to edit the adjustment.
Next, I edited the adjustment layer’s mask. To do this, you click on the mask icon once to make it active. Adjustment layers automatically include a mask, though it is entirely white, and not masking anything until and unless you edit it, or if you had an active selection when you created the adjustment layer. In the latter case, the mask will limit the adjustment to the area within the selection.
When you click on the mask thumbnail, the image edit icon which looks like a little paintbrush, (shown below)
will change to the mask edit icon, below.
With the mask selected, I chose the gradient tool in the toolbox, and picked the linear gradient tool from its options bar.
When a mask is in edit mode, the colors in the toolbox automatically change to have white as the foreground color, and black as the background color.
Painting with white on a mask removes it, and allows whatever it is masking to be fully active. Painting with black on a mask causes whatever it is masking to be fully inactivated and not show or effect the image at all. Painting with shades of gray causes the masking effect to be in proportion to the shade of gray.
Masks can be used to limit and control the application of many of Photoshop’s features, including adjustments, filters, colors, and opacity. They are commonly used to hide, reveal, and blend portions of combined images.
Layer masks can be added at any time to any layer by selecting the layer and then choosing Layer > Add Layer Mask. You will be given the choice of Reveal All (an entirely white mask), or Hide All (an entirely black mask). Once created, you can then edit the mask by painting, or using any of the editing tools using black, white, and gray.
A layer mask affects only the layer it is attached to. It has no effect on any other layer. Masks do not show in the image. They are strictly a means of communicating very specifically, and in precise detail, to Photoshop, exactly how much you want whatever the mask is attached to to affect, be active, or be visible within the image.
You can also add a layer mask by clicking the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. However, this will not offer you the choice of Reveal All, or Hide All.
By applying a white to black gradient to the Levels adjustment layer’s mask, I can cause it to gradually fade from being 100 % effective where the mask is white, to having no effect at all where the mask is black. I wanted to increase the contrast of the interesting shadow at the top of the image, but did not want to ruin the fairly delicate tones in the flowers at the bottom of the image.
In the gradient tool’s options bar, I chose the foreground-to-background gradient which is the one in the top left corner of the pop-up palette. Access the palette by clicking on the little down arrow to the right of the gradient thumbnail.
With the gradient tool, I clicked at the top edge of the image, and dragged straight down, all the way to the bottom of the image. The gradient I made looked like this.
You won’t see this in the image. What you will see is the mask’s effect, which in this case was a removal of the Levels adjustment, where the mask is black, from the bottom half of the image.
If you ever want to see a layer mask, as shown above, first select it in the Layers palette, and then look in the Channels palette. Turn off visibility (click on the eyeball icons) of all but the mask’s channel. Layer masks only appear (and can be edited) in the Channels palette for as long as they are selected in the Layers palette. The minute you deselect them, they disappear from the Channels palette.
Below you see the image with the changes made so far. You should be able to see the contrast fade from top to bottom of the image.
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Select the Second layer. Click the Add Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Brightness/Contrast from the menu, or choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast. Don’t check the Group with Previous Layer check box. In the Brightness/Contrast dialog box, make the settings shown below.
The new adjustment layer will be added to the image, above the Second layer, and below the Levels adjustment layer. Remember, you can edit the Brightness/Contrast settings at any time by double clicking on the thumbnail shown below in its adjustment layer.
As with the Levels adjustment, I edited the adjustment layer’s mask. To limit the contrast increase to only the vertical center of the image, I added another kind of gradient to this adjustment layer’s mask.
Click on the mask icon (the white square) to make it active. Be sure the edit mask icon, shown at the top of this page is shown in the layer. You want to be sure you are editing the mask, and not the image.
Choose the gradient tool in the toolbox. In its options bar, choose the reflected gradient tool.
The foreground to background gradient that we used before should still be selected in the gradient pop-up palette, shown at the top of this page.
Click in the very center of the image, and drag straight across to one of the sides (it doesn’t matter which side).
This time, the mask you create will be as shown below. The Brightness/Contrast adjustment will be restricted to those areas that are white. It will be partially applied to the gray areas in proportion to how dark they are. It will have no effect at all on the black areas on either side.
The resulting image is shown below. I didn’t really like this effect, so I removed the gradient from the mask by choosing Edit > Undo. You can also step backwards in the History palette to undo the adding of the gradient to the mask.
Here is the image’s Layers palette, before the Undo, for your reference.
Next, I will add another image layer, and show you some blend mode options.
continue on page three
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