Off Canvas Colour of Raster Mask Layer?

[sam m brown]

Hi all - I have problems with layers with a raster mask which goes off the page - sometimes photoshop treats the off page data as white and sometimes as black - am processing two identical files with an action and the first step I take is select all and crop image - swatches are set the same so this should make all data off canvas empty. Yet in on efile my layer effects follow around off the page and in another they follow the object into the image.

Hope this makes some sense to people out there as am running out of options to rectify this.

Thanks,

Sam Brown
New Zealand.

[Mark Reynolds]

That is almost impossible to understand Sam. Its just not clear at all what you are asking.

You have a "raster mask" which goes off the page? do you mean a layer mask?

"sometimes photoshop treats the off page data as white and sometimes as black" - that surely doesnt apply anyway because you are cropping the image. But its your background color which photoshop will use if you EXPAND the image.

"and in another they follow the object into the image. " eh?

I think what you may be saying is that Photoshop is not cropping the image completely and your layer effects are still going past the canvas boundaries? is this right?

[sam m brown]

Yes Have a Layer Mask on a Solid Colour Adjustment Layer - Just Raster Layer Mask, no Vector Layer Mask.

Image was cropped - select all->Image-> Crop to make sure no data was off page as Cnavas Size and Crop tool both Leave the Data off the ne Page intact.

The Layer Layer effect with an 11 px stroke on the inside - Two files set up the same and one the stroke follow the mask around the inside border of the page - as though off canvas was black/transparent, not very good if the file is to be tiled with others in the case of the map series the files are for.

On the other file the stoke dissappears off the page - if you move the layer you find ot follows the page around the outside of the canvas - as though off canvas was white/visible.

Can send tiny files - 271k - to show this to any interested parties.

Thanks for your time Mark.

[Mark Reynolds]

Sam… Raster layer masks in Photoshop come in two varieties "reveal all" and "hide all" masks - so your correct, the out of canvas area is either white or black.

As you probably know when creating a new layer mask you can hold down option and create a "hide all Mask" or leave it and create a "reveal all" mask. You can invert the layer mask to convert one type to another (control I). If you do this you will see the image change

Your two images are not consistant and have different masks in this respect. If s3shd is the CORRECT one - then all your masks should be "hide all" black masks - and the WHITE area is the area you want to select and have the Inner stroke layer style applied.

Unfortunately you have to be consistent in this respect at the start – cropping in the action is working fine.

[Mark Reynolds]

Oops just realised now i've seen your post that I think the correct one is the one where the stoke overlaps the edges, because you intend to tile the images.

In this case your masks should all be white with the selected area in black

[sam m brown]

Thanks Mark – This has cleared up a few things for me, I didn't realise the masks came as reveal all/hide all and this has cleared up a lot of confusion for other similar problems I've had but less of an issue before.

Also found a work around for the inconsistency, which may help other users with this problem that like me have created inconsistent files - If you Invert (ctrl-I) the mask (in this case with noting selected) it changes the type of mask it is as you said, but obviously also inverts the mask to the opposite of what’s wanted. If I then Select all and Invert again – the type of mask doesn’t change (hide all/reveal all) but the mask area itself changes back to what is wanted.

Thanks again Mark for the help.