i never have really utilised the masking tool mostly because most tutorials on it are vauge so if anyone could help me ill be you r buddy lol thanks in advance! Trav

Depends exactly what you want to know,but the basics are make a selection by whatever means you prefer, hit the quick mask button and you have a temporary mask, or hit the load selection as channel button on the channels palette and you have reusable mask. You can soften the edge of the mask by featering the selection and edit it by spraying with black grey or white. Shades of grey will give a semi-transparent mask. The best way to learn is to try a few and just mess around to see what the possibilities are.

Atrice, you need to use Save Selection before you can use Load Selection. To use Quick Mask make a rough selection with any selection tool (usually the magic wand or one of the lassos). Click the Quick Mask button or press Q on your keyboard. Edit the pale red (rubylith) mask by painting with black to add to the mask and white to remove the mask. You can use any of the painting tools as well as filters on a mask. When you have it the way you want it, click the Standard Mode button (just to the left of the Quick Mask button) or press Q again. To save this or any selection, choose Select > Save Selection. The saved selection will appear as an alpha channel in the Channels palette. This alpha channel can also be edited with any of the painting tools as well as filters. Remember that black adds to the mask. White removes it. All intermediate shades affect the mask in proportion to their luminosity. Masks (and selections) can/are used to tell Photoshop how much you want paint, an effect, or a filter to be applied. Masks do not appear anywhere in the image. They are simply a means of communicating with the app. They are very cool, and if you aren't using them, you are missing a lot of Photoshop's power.

awesome this clears it up for me thank you very much greatly apreciated !!