Layer Mask

 The man and the trees were dragged onto the cloud image. They were re-ordered with the trees at the top, and clouds at the bottom with their opacity turned down. The man was the layer that needed to be cut out from so the layer mask was added onto his layer by clicking the  layer mask button located at the bottom of the right hand side layers panel (the same symbol for the quick mask). I then painted over the man, making sure the black square was at the front, and he reappeared on the top as if brought forward to the top layer. Remembering if you draw too much then you can always just bring the white square forward and paint over the areas that have been selected in error, then the background appears to come forward. When doing that though, you need to be clicked on the actual layer mask square on the layer, not just the layer. To the right is the final image.

 

We then used the layer mask to smooth out a woman's wrinkles. I first duplicated the layer and then added a Guassian blur of about 1.5 radius, which adds a soft blue to the whole photo. I then added a layer mask and painted over the areas that need to be crisp like the eyes, hair, mouth, remembering to keep the black square at the front! For areas's such as they eyes, it's useful to bring the opacity down because then the effect is softer and looks more blended. Obviously all of her wrinkles have not been removed, you would then have to use the heal tool or the patch tool afterwards, but it's s start, and is an example of using a layer mask for another scenario.

Original                                                                                        Layer Mask Edit

With this layer mask the pigeon needed to look as if it was in motion and the background remains crisp. I first duplicated the layer, added a motion blur to the new layer, and then a layer mask. Making sure my black square was in the foreground i then painted onto everything surrounding the pigeon brining the background back clear again, and the pigeon being the only part with the motion blur filter visible. Just another example of the uses of as layer mask.