Step Six: Hiding the edges of the
photo reveals a transparent, checker-
board pattern, which makes it hard
to see what you’re doing. For that
reason, let’s add a new, solid-col-
ored background. To do that, click
the half-black/half-white circle at the
bottom of the Layers panel (circled)
and choose Solid Color. In the Color
Picker that opens, choose white (you
can enter #FFFFFF into the Hex field
if you’d like) and click OK. Drag the
resulting Color Fill 1 layer beneath
the masked photo layer.
Step Seven: Now click back on
the layer mask to activate it again;
you should see those little brackets
around the mask corners. With the
Brush tool active (it should still be),
continue painting with black to hide
the photo’s edges. If you hide too
much, press X to flip-flop the color
chips so white is on top (circled)
and then paint across the areas you
want to reveal. Feel free to vary your
brush size, too, using the Options
Bar or by pressing the Left Bracket
key ([) to decrease size, or the Right
Bracket key (]) to increase size.
Step Eight: Now let’s use a dif-
ferent brush. In the Brushes panel,
click Bouquet 1. Make sure the
Foreground color chip is set to black
(if it isn’t, simply press X on your
keyboard). In the Options Bar, lower
the brush Opacity to 50% and set
the brush size to be really big (we
used 2900 px here; try 900 on the
Adobe Stock preview image). Click
or click-and-drag across the photo.
Feel free to alter the brush size or
Opacity (or both) as you go. It’s
okay to hide some of your subject’s
face(s), too; you’ll reveal the eyes,
nose, and mouth in the next step.
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