About masks and mask layers
- A mask is way of protecting areas of an image layer from brushes, erasers, and from certain image layer operations (for example, clearing an image layer, blurring an image layer, and so on). You can invert masks, customize the mask display, associate masks with image layers. You can also perform most image layer operations on mask layers.
- A mask layer is a way of creating a mask that will affect one or more image layers. Once you create a mask layer, it will remain until you delete it.
About creating masks
There are several ways you can create a mask:
- By selecting a region,
- From an image file,
- By painting, or
- From curves.
About creating mask layers
When you create a mask layer, masked regions are indicated by a red color. Regions of a mask layer that contain paint or shapes are masked, and regions of a mask layer that do not contain paint or shapes are not masked.
It is also possible to create Invisibility Mask layers. These are similar to mask layers, except that the hidden paint can be shown again.
Types of mask layers
A mask layer can either contain paint or shapes.
- A mask layer that contains paint is indicated by
in the Canvas Layer Editor window and is similar to an image layer. - A mask layer that contains shapes is indicated by
in the Canvas Layer Editor window and is similar to a shape layer.