Absolute Beginner's Guide to Digital Photography

258 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TODIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

FIGURE 17.2

Masks cover an

image except

for those areas

that are cut out.

Masks are not selections; additional commands are used to create selections from

masks. For example, in the Channels palette, clicking the “Load channel as selec-

tion” icon turns the currently highlighted channel into a selection (see Figure 17.3).

You can also Ctrl+click on the channel where the mask is stored, or choose Selection,

Load Selection.

FIGURE 17.3

Loading a mask

in the Channels

palette.

the editing effects are partial. For example, if you increase contrast, the image under

the transparent areas of the mask shows high contrast but the image under the

semitransparent areas of the mask shows only a smaller increase in contrast.