Styles On Masks

page two
Now, I’m going to show you how to use this technique on images. Then I’ll do some text.
     You can get some pretty interesting, and surprisingly subtle effects by using styles such as Sepia Tone, Sun Faded, or even the Red Filter along with different layer blend modes, and mixing in the filter steps (in varying combinations) that I’ll show you.
     I’ve chosen to show you some much “louder” effects simply because they show up better on the compressed JPG images which I must use on this Web site.
     Open your image. I used the photo of a red spider Day Lily, shown below. Press Ctrl-A or choose Select > All. Then press Ctrl-C, or choose Edit > Copy.
     At the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the Add Adjustment Layer button and choose either Levels or Curves from the menu. Click OK in the adjustment layer dialog to add it without making any changes.
     Alt-click on the layer mask thumbnail of the new adjustment layer. Press Ctrl-V, or choose Edit > Paste to paste the image into the mask. Alt-click the adjustment layer mask, again, to exit channel view mode.
     Those steps are the basic starters for adding styles to masks over images. From here on, there are many different directions that you can experiment with.
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Here is a listing of the tools you’ll find useful for manipulating styles on masks over images:

  • Filter > Other > High Pass with a setting of 4 (for starters) is very useful for creating many intermediate tones and bumping up the edges.
  • Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges is also very useful for making the edges more pronounced. There are three settings in the Glowing Edges dialog. The first determines the width of the glowing edge. That setting will vary with image resolution. The second setting determines the whiteness of the glow. Use them accordingly.
  • Filter > Stylize > Find Edges can also give useful results, but doesn’t offer you the chance to alter width or brightness.
  • Image > Adjust > Equalize can sometimes give interesting results.
  • You can use any of the Image > Adjust menu items such as Curves and Levels to alter your mask. These can give you some good variations.
  • Don’t forget that you also can use the adjustment layer itself to alter the tones of the underlying image. For example, I used a Curves adjustment layer. I can double-click on the adjustment thumbnail (the one just to the right of the eyeball) at any time and tinker with curves adjustments which will change the underlying image. These adjustments, in turn, will change how the styles interact with the altered underlying layer, especially if blend modes other than Normal are used. Note that such adjustments have no direct effect on the styles applied to the mask, but the mask does affect how the (in this case, curves) adjustments affect the underlying image. Are we confused?
  • Unlinking the adustment layer thumb from its mask will change how a style works on the layer. It usually is not as good, but sometimes it is interesting. To unlink, click on the little chain icon between the two thumbnails.
  • Be sure and try the texture effects (load from the Styles palette menu). An image will appear to be embossed into or onto the texture.
  • In all cases, after every step that you try, be sure and press Ctrl-I to see what happens when the mask is inverted. If you don’t like it, just press Ctrl-I again to un-invert. Many times, I have found the inverted mask will give a much better, and always totally different result (with a style applied, of course).
Below you can see the image that results from applying the Glowing Edges filter to the mask (settings of 3, 13, 5), inverting the mask (press Ctrl-I), and then applying the Chiseled Sky preset from the Styles palette.
     Second, below, is what the adjustment layer mask to which the style was applied looked like when seen alone (you can Alt-click a mask thumb to see it without the underlying image. Just remember to Alt-click again to get back to your picture.)
Continue on page three
 
 
mask for flower image
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Copyright © 2002 by Jay Arraich.
All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright ©2002 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com
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