Making the Most of Masks

I love masks!  I love to make them and to use them in my layouts.  Masks are versatile.  You can clip your photos to them, use them behind your elements for a splash of color or use them to blend your photos into the background in interesting ways.

I have been asked multiple times how to use a mask?  My pictures will be in CS5 but the steps for Photoshop Elements are the same.  Once you see just how easy it is, you’ll be loving masks and all you can do with them!  Please note that masks do not work in the My Memories Suite.  Hopefully a future version will include this capability.

As with all things Photoshop, there are often many ways to do the same project!

First open a new document.  I always start with a 12×12 300ppi file.  Navigate to the folder where your mask is saved and place it in your 12×12 file.

Now, navigate to the photo you want to use.  Drag and drop it onto the file with your mask.

Once you have your photo on your mask, you will need to “clip” the picture to the mask file. The short cut in photoshop is to use the ALT + CTRL + G (OPT + CMD + G for a Mac) keys to create the clipping mask.  You can also hold your alt key and click the line in between the top and bottom layers.  Lastly, you can right click on the top layer and select the ”create clipping mask” option.  Which ever way you choose, the result should be that your photo is now clipped to your mask.

Now you can adjust your photo to fit the mask and finish your layout. I hope you enjoy playing with clipping masks as much as I do!

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