Page 59 - Adobe Photoshop CC 2020

14. Experiment with the adjustments until you’re satisfied with the selection edge.
We increased the Smooth value to 10 to reduce jagged effects at the selection edge.

15. Expand the Output Settings in the Properties panel and
choose the Layer Mask option in the Output To menu.
This menu can be used to create a new layer or file (with or Note:
without a mask) from the selection. You want to mask the Decontaminate
existing layer, so you are using the Layer Mask option.
Colors can be checked
16. Click OK to accept your refined selection. to remove a certain
percentage of color from
When you pasted the feathered selection from the original Lightning.jpg file, you the edge of a selection.
pasted only the pixels inside the selection area; unselected pixels from the original
image are not a part of the composite file.
Rather than actually excluding or deleting pixels, a layer mask hides unwanted pixels.
The mask you just created is a raster-based pixel mask. Unselected (masked) areas are
hidden but not deleted, so you can later edit the mask to change the visible part of
the image. This is a nondestructive way to hide certain elements of a layer without Note:
permanently deleting pixels. You can edit or disable the layer mask at any time.
A layer mask is basically
an Alpha channel that
is connected to a specific
layer.

The resulting layer
mask hides areas that
were not selected.

17. Control/right-click the mask thumbnail and choose Disable Layer Mask
from the contextual menu.
When you disable the mask, the background pixels are again visible. This is one advan-
tage of using masks — masked pixels are not removed, they are simply hidden.

When the mask is
disabled, masked
pixels are visible.
A red X indicates
that the mask is
disabled.

Control/right-click the
thumbnail to open the
mask’s contextual menu.

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