Photoshop's selection tool is Quick Mask. Working with masks in Photoshop How to remove a quick mask in Photoshop

Mode Quick Mask(Quick Mask) is one of the best selection tools in Photoshop. I use it all the time when creating and modifying selections, and when evaluating the quality and accuracy of selections created using the standard selection tools discussed earlier in this chapter. In short, Quick Mask mode allows you to see which areas of an image are active (selected) and which are inactive (unselected) thanks to transparent overlay. Quick mask mode is very flexible and functional; it allows you to apply many selection tools and filters; Additionally, the quick mask can be saved as an alpha channel for future use. Unfortunately, many people consider Quick Mask mode to be a tool for beginners and hobbyists, but this is not true: Quick Mask mode has many uses.

OwlT Before you begin using the Quick Mask mode in the following exercises, make sure that the Quick Mask settings are set to the default settings. To do this, you can double click on the left icon Quick Mask(Quick Mask) in the Tools palette. Make sure

is that the parameter values ​​specified on

rice. 2.52.

Rice. 2.52.

Standard Quick Mask Mode Options

Let's start with the selected area

After creating your initial selection using the standard marquee tool, click Quick Mask(Quick Mask) under the color picker icon in the tool palette; Alternatively, you can simply press the key

. Photoshop will render the image using a red transparent overlay (which can be compared to a protective clear film) over the inactive areas of the image. As a result, only the selected areas will be available for editing. Please note that the "marching ants" disappear. In mode

Quick Mask allows you to modify and adjust selected areas without fear of accidentally deselecting them. Best of all, however, you can see which areas are highlighted and which are not, and use black and white to create very precise selections.

Separating image elements

In the next example we have to separate a small sheet from the background.

1. Select the sheet using the tool Magnetic Lasso(Magnetic Lasso) or create an initial selection using the tool Magic Wand(Magic wand) (rice, 2,53).

2. Press the key to go

to quick mask mode (Fig. 2.54). All areas that are hidden under the red overlap are inactive, which means

not highlighted. All other areas are active, which means they are highlighted.

Rice, 2,53.

Start by creating an initial selection

3. To further separate the sheet from the pavement, brush the selected areas of the pavement with a black brush. In this case, a hard brush is used to imitate the crisp edges of a leaf. By working on areas of the image with a black brush, you subtract them from the selected area.

4. If you need to add new areas to the selected area, paint over them with a white brush. For example, enlarge the lower part of the leaf petiole. Brush it with a hard white brush at 100% opacity. (Fig. 2.55).

Rice, 2,54.

Go to quick mask mode

Rice. 2,55.

Change the quick mask by painting with black and white brushes

5. Having received the selected area as expected, press the key again . Photoshop converts a Quick Mask into an active selection (Fig. 2.56), after which the sheet image can be inserted into another image.

OwlT After entering Quick Mask mode, Photoshop sets the default colors (prime white and black

background). During operation, you can press the key<Х>to set the foreground color to black and the background color to white. To decrease the brush size, use the key<[>, and to increase<]>.

Rice. 256.

Keystroke allows you to exit quick mask mode and activate the selected area

Quick mask in Photoshop.

Hello dear readers, today I will tell you how to use this mode to beautifully cut out an object of any geometric shape from any photograph.
With the help of the knowledge gained, you can not only quickly place yourself next to any celebrity, but also cut out beautiful flowers, butterflies or images of wild animals for some of your creative ideas in photo processing.
After you have selected the photo you need, which would depict the object you need, open it in Photoshop by simply dragging the shortcut with the picture into the program’s work area.

Now select the Magic Lasso Tool from the various selection tools button and carefully go around the perimeter of the object you want. Naturally, the selection will not be at all what you need, it will not go strictly along the contour in all places of the selected object, and in some places it will cut off parts of the selected image. There is nothing wrong with this; all these defects will be corrected using the mode.

Now click on the “Quick Mask” mode button or simply press the letter “ on the keyboard Q”.
After this manipulation, the entire space around the selected object should acquire a red translucent tint.

Double-click the quick mask mode button and select “Selected Areas” in the dialog box that opens.

As a result, the object you select should become reddish, and the rest of the picture will be painted in the same colors.

When the mode is activated, you have only two colors at your disposal on the palette - black and white. If you select black, the brush will paint with a reddish tint; if you select white, then the reddish tint will be removed. To change the color, you need to press the “” button on your keyboard. D” (black) or “ X" (white).
Select the brush size so that it is convenient for you to work with the picture, and paint the area of ​​the mask where it is missing, and delete it where it is unnecessary.

After a kind of “drawing”, when the mask lies exclusively on the picture you need, exit the “Quick Mask” mode by pressing the “ button Q” or the corresponding icon on the toolbar. As a result, the image will be selected strictly along the contour.

To remove the background you will have to invert the selection - press the keyboard shortcut Shift +Ctrl +I.

Visually, nothing will change in the image, it’s just that now when you press the Delete button, not the flower or person you selected will disappear, but the surrounding background.

Now you have the desired image at your disposal, which you can insert into various collages of your own making.

Now you can consider a more professional tool for working with selected areas - masks. Gradient masks.

We are already quite familiar with selections and have learned how to work with selected areas. Now you can consider a more professional tool for working with selected areas - masks. Why are masks needed at all? Are the selection tools we’ve studied really not capable of doing something? The fact is that all the previously discussed methods allow you to select areas of arbitrary shape, but none of them can take into account differences in focusing levels. Undoubtedly, you have seen collages in which one volume smoothly flows into another. It is with the help of masks that such transition effects are created. In addition, masks allow you to select an arbitrary area or adjust an existing one. Let's get acquainted with the most interesting and powerful Photoshop tool.

The essence of masks is as follows: if one part of the image is selected and we can only work with it, then the remaining part of the image is called masked, i.e. covered with a mask. The mask can be compared to the black paper that photographers use to cover part of the photo paper when printing photographs. This is done so that the light from the enlarger hits only certain areas of the paper and does not affect those areas that the photographer covered with black paper. The mask can be schematically represented as follows.

- This is a selection outline presented in grayscale. Wherein:

• Selected areas appear in white.
• Unselected areas are shown in black.
• Partially selected areas appear in shades of gray. The more an area is selected, the lighter its mask. Accordingly, almost unselected areas are represented in dark gray.

Quick Mask- A selection view in which selected areas retain their original color and unselected areas are covered with a translucent, solid-color mask. By default it is red.

It would be logical to assume that if we can specify the selected area, then we can also specify the masked area. In Photoshop, you can literally draw a mask using any drawing tool. Very often, a mask is an indispensable highlighting tool. Look at the photo. Even the Magnetic Lasso and Magic Wand tools will go crazy if you force them to select a white shape on a white background. I suggest using a mask to highlight the girl’s figure in the document photo.jpg. To do this you need to do the following:

The question arises: why did we do all this if in the end everything except what was needed was selected? Then, now it is enough to invert the selection with the command Inverse menu Select, so that the girl’s figure is selected. I would like to note that masks are the shortest way to solve complex problems of selecting areas like this one.

The color and transparency of the created mask can be adjusted at your own discretion. To configure these parameters, just double-click on the button to switch to quick mask mode.
The mask settings are provided solely for your convenience. The color you use to mark the masked area does not affect the image, and the transparency changes only so that you can see what you are covering with the mask. Let's look at the action of the switches in the section Color Indicates(color indication). By default, red indicates the masked area. This matches the switch Masked Areas(masked area). If you want the color to indicate the selected area, switch the checkbox to (selected area). Again, this is a matter of personal habits and convenience. Let's look at this setting with an example. Select a rectangular area on any image. Switch to quick mask mode by pressing or clicking on the corresponding icon on the tool palette. Approximately the following picture will appear in the document window:
Double-click on the icon to switch to quick mask mode. In the Quick Mask Settings dialog box that appears, switch the Color Indicates section to . The picture will instantly change and you will see the following:
Pay attention to the icon for switching to quick mask mode. Depending on the setting, it changes its appearance, showing which setting is currently enabled. Once again, I insistently draw your attention to the fact that mask and selection (masked area and selected area) are two sides of the same coin. All the area that is not selected is masked, and all the unmasked area is selected. The settings discussed above are solely for your convenience.

Please note that the mask is drawn in black and erased with white or an eraser. All other colors in Quick Mask mode are displayed as grayscale (depending on their brightness). An interesting aspect is that the lighter the color (on the gray scale), the more transparent the selected area will be. The transparency will also be special, namely, the same as when executing the Feather command. Make sure of this as follows.

Gradient masks.

Let's try to get acquainted with the principle of creating gradient masks. As discussed above, a mask can add transparency to a selected area. Let's use this to create a beautiful effect called a gradient mask. The meaning of this action lies in the possibility of creating a mask with any drawing tool and in the peculiarities of interpreting the gray color that fills the mask as translucent. In other words, one image will be superimposed on another with gradient transparency. Let's do the preparatory work with the drawing. According to my plan, I need to create a mirage in the form of an eagle’s head dissolving into the clouds. Now let's move on to the second document and try to select the eagle's head not just like that, but through a gradient mask. For this:

In the lower right corner I pasted part of the Flower.psd image from the Samples folder. This part also fades into the background in a gradient manner. To create this effect, I filled a quick mask with a linear gradient.

Welcome to Arttime, today I want to talk about such a useful tool as a quick mask. This is another tutorial on how to cut out an object in Photoshop.

A quick mask is a great tool for this purpose and more, I’ll write about other possibilities next time, so don’t miss it 😉

Cutting out an object with a quick mask

First, we need the tool itself to quick mask. It's in the quick toolbar at the very bottom, turn it on or just click “ Q“.

The trick is that for “Clipping” we will use a regular hard black brush. And in order to erase the mask, just select “ Eraser". So, let's look:

Personally, I outline from the middle, but you can also draw from the outside, whichever is more convenient for you. To make the work easier, use a small brush to follow the outline of the object you want to highlight, and then use a larger brush to loosely paint the inside.

Once you have completely painted over the desired area, click on the " Tool" again. Quick mask" or the button " Q" A highlight dotted line will appear.

If you painted from the middle, like me, then the selection line needs to be “Invert”. How to do this is perfectly shown in the screenshot below. Or just press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+I.

This is necessary so that the clipping is not around the character, but vice versa.

All that remains is to cut or copy the character to a new layer.

Let's move on to the debate

I’ll try not to be too verbose and will start with the fact that the issue with the army has been resolved, for now 🙂 Yes, I also successfully defended my thesis – I got a 4! Wow, it’s not for nothing that I decided to read it the day before the deadline

And, of course, it’s time to do a competition! I have ideas, but I still doubt it... I need to think carefully about all the pros and cons and get down to business. So stay tuned.

Good luck to you!

Before we look at the best way to soften edges, let's quickly look at Photoshop's standard edge feathering tool. Go to the main menu tab Selection --> Modification --> Feathering (Select --> Modify --> Feather). This action opens the tool's dialog box where you can enter a Feather Radius value in pixels:

This is all very well, but the problem arises: how do I know the exact value to enter this radius? But I need exactly the exact value, because... I'm going to create a smooth transition between the selected area and the white background below it.

All I can do in this case is to select the value at random. To begin with, I will enter a value of 30 pixels, this value is nothing more than my guess.

To apply the feathering action, press the OK button and look at the working document window. What has changed there? Practically, nothing, except for the fact that the oval has become a little smaller:

In fact, the border of the selected area now has feathering, but the standard Photoshop ant track simply does not show this.

The reason is that the border is only shown around pixels that are at least 50% selected. So, Photoshop tells us something like: " The most I can tell you is that any of the pixels that are within the selection outline are more than 50% selected. I wanted to give more information, but I'm sorry, I can't, because I'm in trouble".

In order to immediately have visual information about shading the edge of the selected area, you need the Quick Mask tool.

Using the Quick Mask

To cancel edge feathering, press Ctrl+Z and launch the Quick Mask tool, its icon is located at the bottom of the toolbar. A single press switches us to the quick mask mode, a second press switches us back to normal mode. There is another way to enter the "Quick Mask" mode, this is by pressing the "Q" key on the keyboard:

So, click on the icon to switch to this mode and see that the unselected area of ​​the image is highlighted in red. In other words, areas of the image not included in the selected area highlighted red, and the areas of the image that are included in the selection are not highlighted. We can see this perfectly in the working document window:

The Quick Mask mode doesn't just let us see our choices. It also allows you to edit the selection in ways that are not possible with standard selection tools. For example, you can apply any of Photoshop's blend filters!

At this point, the transition between selected and unselected areas is sharp, which means we have sharp edges to the areas. To blur them, I use the Gaussian Blur filter.

To activate it, go to the main menu tab Filter --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur (Filter --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur). A filter dialog box will open; move the radius slider in it and observe the changes in the working document window. As you begin to move the slider, you will see that the edges of the quick mask start to soften. The further you drag the radius slider, the more blurred the edges will be. There is no longer any need to guess what is happening to the edges, we see it in real time as we move the slider. In the figure I have given an example of two blur radius values. Now I can clearly see that in my case the optimal radius is 25 pixels:

After you have selected the optimal radius value, click OK in the filter working window. And to apply the “Quick Mask” action, click on its icon at the bottom of the toolbar, or press the “Q” key.

This action returns us to our standard selection display, which again shows no sign of edge blur:

But in fact, we have everything ready. The only remaining problem is that we currently have the wrong part of the image selected. We need an external one, but the internal one is selected. Let's swap them (invert) by pressing the key combination Ctrl+Shift+I.

Now we need to delete the selected area; at the moment it is the part of the image outside the contour. To do this, press the Delete key. Let's look at the picture:

Almost done. All that remains is to remove the “running ants”; to do this, press Ctrl+D. Well, that's it, we got the finished result: