Absolute Beginner's Guide to Digital Photography

Using a Mask Created from an Image to Create Special Effects

in Another Image

Follow these steps to merge two images and create art:

1. Open any image that you want to become the background. In this example,
   a landscape from Greenland will become the background.


2. Open an image that will become the mask. In this example, a Mosquito
   reconnaissance plane from WWII will be the mask.


3. Create a channel in the landscape by clicking on the New Channel icon in
   the Channels palette (see Figure 17.7) or by choosing Window, Channels.
   Name it “ghost image.”

262 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TODIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

FIGURE 17.7

Create a new

channel.

4. Outline the image using the Lasso tools or the Pen tool and then paste it into
   the new channel. In this example, the airplane image is pasted into the land-
   scape’s new channel (see Figure 17.8). This creates a mask containing an
   image of the aircraft.

FIGURE 17.8

Paste the object

into a new

channel.

5. Return to the landscape by clicking the top channel. Load the “ghost image”
   mask as a selection in the landscape.


6. Now create two adjustment layers: Hue/Saturation and Curves. They affect
   only the selection (the ghost plane). The adjustments create the ghostly
   image in the sky (see Figure 17.9). In this example, the plane has been
   copied several times and reduced using Edit, Free Transform.