Photoshop_User_July_2017

> PHOTOSHOP USER

>^ JULY 2017

[ 48 ]

› › HOW TO

Now that Photoshop has done the hard work

of creating the intricate selection for me, I can eas-

ily turn it into a mask with only one click. I want

to add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer from

my Adjustments panel (Window>Adjustments).

Hue/Saturation automatically comes with a mask,

which will automatically use the selection in the

image to generate the mask. Here’s the mask that

was immediately created for me.

Can I just take a moment to point out that

we’ve created a detailed mask with only a mouse

click and no free-hand painting? Yeah, we just

did that!

POWER USER TIP—

POLARIZING YOUR MASK

Sometimes the mask I get when I use Color

Range is really detailed, but I need the mask to

be more extreme, so I need to tweak the mask

that I currently have. To do this, hold down

Option (PC: Alt) and click on the layer mask

thumbnail to preview the mask on the whole

image. Then press Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L) to

bring up the Levels dialog. In the Input Levels

section, pull the highlight and midtone sliders

to the left to make the mask more “polarized”

or more black-and-white (with less grey). Take

a look at the two screen grabs to the right and

look at the different positions of the sliders and

see how it changes the areas that are white,

gray, and black in the mask.

Click OK in the Levels dialog, and then hold

Option (PC: Alt) again while clicking on the layer

mask thumbnail once more to turn the mask

preview off and go back to looking at the actual

image and not the mask.