I've been using photoshop for a little while now, but I have yet to take ful advantage of masks. Normally I just create some sort of lasso and use that to isolate a section. However, I'm beginning to do some more detailed work, and I think that using masks would really help. Are there any good resources that you could recommend that might help me? Is there a way to save masks, so that you can use them again after making a new selection? Any help you could provide would be appreciated. Also, I'm mainly doing renderings of cars if that makes a difference.

Attached Link: Layermask on myjanee.com

Wow. I guess one first resource for your question would be the Photoshop manual... Because a mask is just what you are asking, something you can use after making a new selection. And, even better, all the pixels are still there if you decide the antenna has to be on the roof of the car. The simplest resource might be trial and error (it worked for me). Open up a file of a car, or something. Double-click in the layer tab on the layer. It will become Layer 0. Click on the mask icon (circle in square). Now you have two rectangles in the tab. The original photo and an empty square. Pick a tool (take the brush... to keep it simple), and paint with black in the empty square. Make sure it is selected, you will see that with help of a line around the little thumbnail of your layer. As you will see, you can paint away the background of the car. But what if you accidently paint over one of the mirrors and find out a long time later? No problemo! Just erase the parts where you crossed the lines! Masks are a gift from God! A lot of people do not know this, but you can actually look at your mask at full size by alt-clicking on them (it might be some other key-stroke on pc, but you will have to click). You can use filters on masks, use airbrushes, clone stamps, healing brushes, whatever you want. Without changing the pixels in the original picture! If you decide NOT to remove the background after all, just throw away the mask, and it pops right back! You can read the discovery of heaven (which is a book by a Dutch writer, but not what I mean) in the link I provided... I am quit sure you will like it a lot. A whole new world of possibilities will open up, one of the greatest things is that you can temporarily 'erase' stuff, and you do not have to start all over again if you change your mind. That's the computer age in full effect! Good luck pioneering!

Thanks! If I want to save selection boundaries to use later, should I do that by saving them as Alpha Channels? Then should I create a mask for a layer and then load the alpha channel selections?

Attached Link: http://aprilgem.com/log/archive/2003/07/12.html

Save to an alpha channel, yes. Then, when you want to attach it to a specific layer, load the selection (or activate the alpha channel) first, select the layer you want to mask, and then click the mask icon in the layers palette. There are other ways to create layer-specific masks. I'm linking to one of my tutorials where you can learn another way.

Thnaks - one problem I've run into is that when I load the alpha channel, then apply a mask to a layer, the mask does weird things - including turning to gray scale? Am I doing something wrong? I ended up having to just create new overlaying layers, but this doesn't help if I would like to erase things on the layer, without acutally permanently affecting the layer. Any ideas?

I do not really understand what you are doing, and with what purpose. Basic information that might help: in alpha channels and masks you have all shades of grey to your disposal. But only gray. 100% black is 100% transparent 100% white is 100% opaque You have to show a screenshot if this does not clearify your situation. And you can always aply a 'levels' correction to a mask, click with the black eyedropper tool on the grey you want black.

Ok, I'll give you a little example of what i'm doing. So lets say that I bring a sketch of a car that I drew into Photoshop. I then laso certain body parts of the car. I want to keep this selection area for use throughout my project so I don't have to keep retracing the car. So, once I've got all of the selections made, I've been saving it as an alpha channel. Then lets say I want to create a mask on the layer that the body is on to manipulate it. I've been trying to bring the alpha channel into the mask layer, so that I could only play with the portions of my sketch within the alpha channel selection area. Is this possible? Thanks again for all your help.

It depends on what you want by 'manipulating'. I assume you want to color and further render the car. You should not do that in the same layer as the sketch is on, just make a new layer and set it to 'multiply' mode. Layers are free, use lots of them (and name them). If you command-click on the mask (or select the mask and choose 'make selection', do not put in a feathering value) you will get a selection where the white parts are 100% selected and the black parts not. If you want to paint one part of the car, you make a new layer. If you already made a mask (by clicking on the circle in the square button), you will use your selection to fill it, or paint within the selcection. If you first make the selection and then click the mask button, the mask is instantly created with the selection you made. You can also cut and paste (but there is no real good reason). Go to the alpha channel, select all and copy. Go to the layer where you want a mask (NOT the layer with the sketch, keep that seperate), make a mask, alt-click you 'jump' inside the mask, so your canvas goes white, and paste the alpha channel. Good luck!