by
MichelB » Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:47 am
hukari wrote: Am I understanding it wrong? Rusty has four layers. Shouldn't there only be two: the background and a Hue/Sat adjustment layer with a mask, and the mask is painted black above the flower?
Rusty's method is the classical (and correct) way to 'hijack' a mask from an adustment layer.
He keeps the background unchanged, which is more than advisable, it's a must...
Now, his description is perfect for the workflow, but understanding why this works is somewhat more advanced
than this first exercise for beginners.
Think of it like this:
- Forget the background (it's kept for safety)
- you want to mix two layers
- the middle adjustment layer is there to tell PSE if the pixels to be visible come from the upper or lower level
With Rusty's setup, the type of adjustment layer is indifferent. No effect. The masked (black) part of the mask and the white one are not changed.
What is very important to understand is that the upper layer is linked to the adjustment mask. The upper layer blend mode is normal, that is the pixels of the above layer will replace the values of the effect of the background copy modified by the (null) adjustment. However, the masked part will suppress the efect of the adjustment layer and its linked upper layer: the background will show through.
In this example, it is not important if the upper or lower layer is desaturated. You only have to invert the mask.