Learning Photoshop is at least as much about doing (and equally important: undoing). Experimenting on the screen - trying this and that and getting instant visual feedback on every move. Books are great and tips and tricks are even greater, but, at least for me, when it comes to Photoshop, the ratio between theory and practice is a small one - maybe one to ten, but probably even smaller.
What I'd hoped you'd do with the layered psd-file I sent, was to try it yourself - fiddling with all the sliders and try to come up with something you like even better. Try the opacity-slider on the smoothen layer, play with the sliders in the selective color layer and so forth... If masks are new to you, try to paint with black on the mask of the selective colors layer. When you regret, paint with white instead. Get a practical feel for what 'black conceals and white reveals' mean in the context of masks. When you've done that, try to paint with grey on the mask and see what happens!
I use masks all the time - they are an indispensible tool to do anything selectively on an image, be it color, contrast, blurring, sharpening or what have you. I have a Wacom pen and tablet, which I use extensively to fine-tune my selections after I've turned them into masks. If you have the foreground and background colors set to black and white, you can just hit the 'x'-key (on the keyboard) to switch between them and therefore between revealing or concealing parts of a layer. And - if you ever want to turn a mask back into a selection, all you have to do is to Ctrl-click (I think - on my mac it is Cmd-click) on the mask icon.
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Olaf
What I'd hoped you'd do with the layered psd-file I sent, was to try it yourself - fiddling with all the sliders and try to come up with something you like even better. Try the opacity-slider on the smoothen layer, play with the sliders in the selective color layer and so forth... If masks are new to you, try to paint with black on the mask of the selective colors layer. When you regret, paint with white instead. Get a practical feel for what 'black conceals and white reveals' mean in the context of masks. When you've done that, try to paint with grey on the mask and see what happens!
I use masks all the time - they are an indispensible tool to do anything selectively on an image, be it color, contrast, blurring, sharpening or what have you. I have a Wacom pen and tablet, which I use extensively to fine-tune my selections after I've turned them into masks. If you have the foreground and background colors set to black and white, you can just hit the 'x'-key (on the keyboard) to switch between them and therefore between revealing or concealing parts of a layer. And - if you ever want to turn a mask back into a selection, all you have to do is to Ctrl-click (I think - on my mac it is Cmd-click) on the mask icon.
--
Olaf
