The power of LAYER MASKS S
ometimes just knowing where a tool is and what it does isnt enough. Knowing the creative potential of a tool or a menu command in Photoshop comes from seeing examples of its application. That’s why I’m showing you this particular technique. Layer masks are nothing more than a mask that happens to be on a floating layer above a background image. And a mask is simply a black and white image that blocks part of an image from being seen and allows other portions of that image to be revealed. I took the photo below of the Borneo eared
frog in my semi-annual Frog and Reptile workshop now held in Kansas City, Missouri. We use large photo prints of out of focus foliage behind the macro subjects, but in this case the frog had jumped to a perch that didn’t have a natural looking background. I used a ring flash, and the light fall-off made the background muted. It wasn’t terrible, but I wanted a more attractive green background indicative of the frog’s natural environment in the jungle. Because the frog and the branch became more and more out of focus, it would have been a challenge to simply make a selection of the background and replace it with a typical copy
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