{"id":19904,"date":"2018-08-19T09:42:56","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T13:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?p=19904"},"modified":"2018-08-19T09:42:56","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T13:42:56","slug":"easily-refine-mask-brush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/","title":{"rendered":"Easily Refine Any Photoshop Mask With A Brush"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LandInLand_066\"
\nYou can refine any mask in Photoshop with a brush. How? Choose any Brush tool and paint on it. The Brush, Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, Eraser, Gradient, Blur, Smudge, Dodge and Burn tools all have their uses. Whether simple or complex, layer masks are just black and white images; you can do anything to a mask that you can do to a black and white image.
\nIt\u2019s important to remember this because you might not realized just how much you can refine a selection or mask. Sometimes tools like Quick Selection do an amazingly fast job of selecting specific image areas, but their results can be improved further with a brush. Many times the sophisticated selections made with tools like Select By Color Range (which will allow you to quickly select Shadows, Highlights, or single colors like Red, etc) end up selecting too many areas and you may want to remove some of those areas from the selected regions in a mask. Painting over those areas with a black brush is one way to do this. (By contrast painting over areas with white will remove any gray values and let the effect of a layer pass through unimpeded.) While there are many brushes you can refine them with, more often than not you\u2019ll find yourself using a simple soft-edged brush to paint black and\/or white at varying opacities. It\u2019s a simple but powerful technique, making it extraordinarily useful.
\nThere are many times you\u2019ll want to manually refine a mask with a brush.
\nHere are a few examples.
\n\"Mask_Contour_After\"<\/p>\n

\"Mask_Contour\"
\nThe edge of a contour\u00a0made with the Quick Selection tool can be refined.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mask_Gradient_Before\"
\n\"Mask_GradientNoMountain\"<\/em><\/p>\n

A gradient can be removed from an area.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here a gradient only affects the sky but\u00a0not the mountain.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mask_Highlights_Before\"<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mask_HighlightsNoSky\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Specific areas of a luminance mask can be removed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Only the highlights of the\u00a0lower portion of this image are affected.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n\"Mask_Red_After\"<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mask_Red_Before\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Specific areas of a selection made with Select By Color range can be removed.<\/em><\/p>\n

One\u00a0orange area is removed from the selection of other orange areas.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more about masking\u00a0here.<\/strong><\/a><\/span>
\nView more in my DVD Drawing With Light.<\/a><\/strong><\/span>
\nLearn more in my digital photography\u00a0and digital printing workshops.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can refine any mask in Photoshop with a brush. How? Choose any Brush tool and paint on it. The Brush, Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, Eraser, Gradient, Blur, Smudge, Dodge and Burn tools all have their uses. Whether simple or complex, layer masks are just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2725],"tags":[136,3779,2674,245,2604,3780,3781,1426,141],"post_folder":[],"yoast_head":"\nEasily Refine Any Photoshop Mask With A Brush - John Paul Caponigro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Easily Refine Any Photoshop Mask With A Brush - John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You can refine any mask in Photoshop with a brush. How? Choose any Brush tool and paint on it. The Brush, Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, Eraser, Gradient, Blur, Smudge, Dodge and Burn tools all have their uses. Whether simple or complex, layer masks are just...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-19T13:42:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/LandInLand_066.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"johnpaulcaponigro\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Easily Refine Any Photoshop Mask With A Brush - John Paul Caponigro","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Easily Refine Any Photoshop Mask With A Brush - John Paul Caponigro","og_description":"You can refine any mask in Photoshop with a brush. How? Choose any Brush tool and paint on it. The Brush, Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, Eraser, Gradient, Blur, Smudge, Dodge and Burn tools all have their uses. Whether simple or complex, layer masks are just...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/","og_site_name":"John Paul Caponigro","article_published_time":"2018-08-19T13:42:56+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/LandInLand_066.jpg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"johnpaulcaponigro","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/","name":"John Paul Caponigro","description":"Illuminating Creativity","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/LandInLand_066.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/LandInLand_066.jpg","width":425,"height":425},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/","name":"Easily Refine Any Photoshop Mask With A Brush - John Paul Caponigro","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2018-08-19T13:42:56+00:00","dateModified":"2018-08-19T13:42:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/858a1050968a36008905f1980aae47b0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/19904\/easily-refine-mask-brush\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Easily Refine Any Photoshop Mask With A Brush"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/858a1050968a36008905f1980aae47b0","name":"johnpaulcaponigro","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/309d46e93fff33337943899d8f3269cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/309d46e93fff33337943899d8f3269cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"johnpaulcaponigro"},"url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/author\/johnpaulcaponigro\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19904"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=19904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}