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hello and welcome to another filter
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grade tutorial my name is Leighton and
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in this quick video I'll be showing you
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how to use layer masks in Adobe
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Photoshop masking is a non-destructive
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way to eliminate certain aspects or
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section of a layer to be able to easily
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undo or fix your actions layer masks
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work great if you want to remove
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backgrounds or add an adjustment or
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effect to a select area of the layer so
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here I am in Photoshop I've got a nice
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photo of the Hollywood Hills in
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Hollywood sign and what I want to do is
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actually place the sky in this photo
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with this sky of a night scene so we can
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do this fairly easily with layer masks
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there's a couple ways you can go about
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doing this the easiest and quickest way
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to eliminate your background or sky is
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when you go over here to the toolbar on
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the left hand side and click the magic
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wand tool you can actually just click on
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the sky hold shift and just keep adding
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points until your entire background is
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highlighted as you can see there's a
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little dotted line here going across the
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sky so once this is highlighted all you
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have to do is go down to the bottom of
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screen and click this layer mask button
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here just a circle inside the rectangle
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click that and automatically has gotten
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rid of the foreground and left the sky
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which is the opposite of what we want
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but in order to switch that around all
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you have to do is double click on this
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mask that you've created and that's
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gonna bring up your options and right at
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the bottom this button invert that's
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just gonna invert the layer mask so
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right away you see you've replaced the
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now--how layer masks work is whatever is
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white is gonna be showing and whenever
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it's black is gonna be eliminated so as
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you can see here on this mask the sky is
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black meaning that we've gotten rid of
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it completely in the foreground is white
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if you're still kind of struggling with
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this concept think about putting a white
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sheet of paper up to a light source like
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a light bulb you're still gonna be able
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to see light coming through that sheet
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of paper however if you hold a solid
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black piece of paper up to the light
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that solid paper is gonna block any
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light coming through so it's the same
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concept with layer masks you can
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actually paint a layer mask by clicking
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the brush tool and making sure the color
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selected is black you can actually
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remove the layer just by painting on it
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we undo that and change the color to
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white it's gonna bring back your
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original photo as you can see if I paint
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this we're back here now if you don't
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want to have as harsh of a brush you can
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actually select a shade of grey so I'm
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gonna select that one right there
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this is useful if you want to have a
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nice fade or gradients transition from
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the foreground to the background it
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doesn't look as good I would recommend
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sticking with white or black and then
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changing your actual brush settings
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maybe bring the opacity down as well as
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a flow so you can just fix the edge here
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because you still see a little bit of
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the blue from this guy before and you
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can just kind of go along brushing over
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the edge just to make it less obvious
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that you've cut this out somes gonna
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quickly go over the edge just to make
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sure it looks a little bit more natural
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you spend as long as you want doing edge
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maintenance on this mask you might even
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go to the blur tool here and just do a
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quick run-through of this edge just to
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kind of blur it into the background a
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bit more make it look more natural I'm
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gonna leave that and move on to a bigger
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issue which is the fact that this
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foreground is looking very bright and
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well lit and does not really blend well
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with this background so I'm actually
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gonna create a curves layer and I'm
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gonna right click so that can turn it
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into a clipping mask so what that does
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it just only affects this layer here and
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it will not affect the bottom background
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layer which is this guy it's only gonna
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adjust the foreground so using the
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curves adjustment I'm gonna just the
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exposure so it looks much more real
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because the Hollywood Hills are not this
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I surround the highlights alright so it
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looks good it's got a bit of a red kind
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of hue to this foreground and you can
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really see this on the white of the
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Hollywood sign so I'm gonna use this
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layer mask which is already here I'm
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gonna paint black gonna change my pass
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it all the way up flow all the way up
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and I might add a bit of a feather to
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the edge of my brush okay so now I'm
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just gonna paint black over the
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Hollywood letters and as you can see if
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I paint on this foreground it's gonna
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return back to its original state before
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I made the curves adjustment it's meant
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undo that basically just exaggerate the
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letters a little bit more and correct
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that red hue that the curves layer made
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so again just a subtle adjustment but
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that's really gonna make a difference we
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zoom out mind adjust that even more so
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there you go I've used two different
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masks here using the magic wand tool I
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got rid of the sky and created a mask
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then I created a curves adjustment layer
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to make the scene more realistic and
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darken the overall look then create
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another mask to accentuate and
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exaggerate the Hollywood sign making it
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more bright so it sticks out a lot so
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there you go that's a quick and easy way
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of how to create masks in Photoshop I
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would highly recommend using masks over
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actually erasing use the eraser tool
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then continue making adjustments
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you won't be able to hit undo if you go
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too deep and adjustments there's no way
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of really getting it back however if you
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use the layer mask and just paint on the
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scene in a pinch you can always just
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switch the foreground and background
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color paint with white and you can bring
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back your foreground now if you like to
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speed up your workflow in Photoshop and
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create effects that would take you a
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long time or things you just don't know
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how to do check out filter grade comm
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for all the best Photoshop actions such
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as light leaks some lens flares color
4:53
wash film effects and many more in
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addition to the Photoshop actions
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check out filter grid for all the best
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Lightroom presets capture one styles and
