From the course: Drawing and Painting in Photoshop

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Layer masks

Layer masks - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Drawing and Painting in Photoshop

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Layer masks

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- [Instructor] When we apply color to a layer, we cover up its transparency. We can only restore the transparency by using a tool like the eraser tool, for example, and erasing the color, which restores the transparency of the layer. But there are also other ways to work with the transparency of a layer. For example, we can use a layer mask. I want to show you how this works. So I've started to create a tree here. The wooden parts are ready, but now I need some foliage, and I have already prepared a layer here. I will just make it visible, and this layer contains a nice, green pattern that is perfect for our foliage, but it hasn't got the right shape right at the moment, and one thing I could do is use the eraser tool and start erasing parts of this layer in order to bring it into shape, but I can also use a layer mask. In the layers palette at the very bottom, we find this button here that says add layer mask. Now our layer has a layer mask linked to it and we have this second…

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