Layer masks

[Peter Gaunt]

Am I correct in thinking that layer masks are terribly badly
implemented in Elements 2? I'm not talking about the selection masks
which you can turn on with the selection brush.

Elements seems to recognise, and honour, layer masks created in other
applications but other than horrendous bodges there doesn't seem any
simple way of creating one directly in Elements from, say, a selected
area. There's not any real mention of them in the manual. Well it
mentions how to use them if they exist but not how to create them.

Am I wasting my time looking for a simple, straightforward way of
creating one? At present if I absolutely must have a layer mask I
squirt the file across to Photodesk on my Risc OS machine, apply the
mask and then squirt it back to the Mac.

[Peter Gaunt]

In article <1dea26d3.0@WebX.la2eafNXanI>, Chris Rankin
<chrisrnkn@aol.com> wrote:

> <http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/elements/elemask.htm>

OK, thanks. It works fine but it's still not a proper layer mask is it?
I must investigate it further though as it may effectively do the same
thing but in a different way. On first playing around with it it
appears to me that it isn't quite as flexible but I guess it may turn
out to be in the end.

[Chuck Snyder]

Peter, there are free add-ons out there that will provide you with 'real'
layer mask capability in Elements. Here's one of the sites where you'll
fined them:

[url]http://member.melbpc.org.au/~pshipley/Download.htm[/url]

Chuck

[Chuck Snyder]

Jodi, it takes me so long to get through all the messages when I get home
from work (88 today) that I should have known the answer would already be
there before I could find the hyperlink, write the note, etc.

:-)

Chuck

[Jodi Frye]

Mr. Shipley must love us ;)

[Chuck Snyder]

Peter, for the unitiated: what in the world is a 'bodge'??

:-)

Chuck

p.s. The methods that are included in Jay Arraich's tutorials (use of the
layer mask in a fill or adjustment layer) take a little getting used to but
work just fine.

[Peter Gaunt]

In article <768252EDD5228DB390D9ACCF8F2DE24F@in.WebX.la2eafNX anI>,
Chuck Snyder <csnyder@houston.rr.com> wrote:

> Peter, for the unitiated: what in the world is a 'bodge'??

See below :-)

> p.s. The methods that are included in Jay Arraich's tutorials (use of the
> layer mask in a fill or adjustment layer) take a little getting used to but
> work just fine.

That's a bodge. It's basically, I guess, another way of saying 'work
around' but has different connotations often slightly derogatory. My
dictionary (I just looked) says it's a variation of 'botch'. It's a
word in fairly common use in the UK.

I think I'll play around some more with Jay's idea which, although it
works, is still a bodge to get around Adobe's strange ommission.