Photoshop Creative

MichelB wrote: 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.

Yes, but in the interest of keeping the file size low, wouldn't the background plus a Hue/Sat adjustment layer plus masking be the optimal solution?

Okay, I got it done, finally! Somehow my brush was not set on "normal".....
What I don't understand is "why".....
1) Why do I have to clip the adjustment mask?

2) Wouldn't it be quicker to paint the flower rather than the background? How would I do that?

Help you lovely people.....help me understand this.

I bet I frustrated the heck out of my teachers. You did explain why, Michel, I just didn't read closely enough. As for doing the flower rather than the background, on thinking (duh), all I'd have to do was switch from black to white? I still have to really work on this concept altho I somewhat understand. Sorry to be such a pill. -L

farabee,

The requirement to paint black or white depends on your layer order.

If the B&W layer (unsaturated) is on top of the layer stack, and you are seeing a B&W image, you paint black on the flower to reveal the colour layer underneath.

The decision is more based on the shortest route to the desired image in terms of the order of the layer stack and the colour of the brush to be used for painting.

Hope that makes it clear(er)

We are using an adjustment layer because as Elements users we don't have access to a layer mask?

How do the adjustment layer clipping masks differ from a layer mask (as simple as you can make it, please).

OK another question. Background off, Dup layer, Unsat layer, Adj.layer above. Now paint with blac.make error switch to white. Nothing happens. In order for this to work I have to switch to white, change mode to lighten. switch to black- change mode to Darken. and then it works.

It took me awhile to figure this out. When I first installed 6.0 I could not get it to work all. What setting do I have set wrong?

farabee,

We are using adjustment layers, because in this case we are unsaturating with and adjustment layer and the mask is available. There are a couple of downloads available that will give you the mask ability on any layer - except I believe the background layer.

See http://www.cavesofice.org/~grant/Challe ... Files.html for this download.

HankW,

Your brush should be set to Normal for painting on a mask. Normal will paint Black or White as required/determined by the foreground colour.

hukari wrote:

MichelB wrote:
Yes, but in the interest of keeping the file size low, wouldn't the background plus a Hue/Sat adjustment layer plus masking be the optimal solution?

Absolutely.
Rusty's suggestion (or a real layer mask) is required if you cannot achieve your goal with an adjustment layer. For example if you want to blur a background instead of desaturating it, or using a filter like watercolor...
Adjustment layers can do a lot of things, but they cannot use effects where the pixels are changed depending on surrounding pixels instead of the corresponding pixel in another layer. The effect of the adjustment layer is the same for each pixel of the image... except if you use a mask.
My example was meant to introduce at the same time an idea about layers and masks. To understand hijacking an adjustment layer mask, you have also to understand the concept of grouping layers and even blend modes, even if it is normal mode here. My idea was to give progressive examples, explaining grouping and clipping layer groups before the hijacking trick... It was to be expected that this exercise would bring much curiousity, and I am delighted about the outcome!

Michael thank you i love what you are doing for our community , you are making me for one a little smarter, i love the new control of no goofs are uncorrectable, because i goof a lot. thanks for thinking of us.