Photoshop Tutorials

Step 21

The image now looks quite nice but here I'll show you how I added some more details to bridge the gap between the foreground and the background. First create a new layer group above the background group then select the pen tool and in the main toolbar choose shape layers. I had my foreground color set at black here but it doesn't matter because we will be hiding it anyway. So draw a path the same as the one below then make sure this layer is within our new group. Everything else from now on should be created within this group.

Step 22

Now right click on this layer and select blending options. This technique I am showing you now is trying to recreate a technique that I learned from Nik Ainley and gives the effect of part of the image being punched out the rest and gives a bit of depth. So use the settings I have shown below. You will notice I've lowered the fill opacity to 0%; this will make only the layer styles show up and not the actual fill of the shape we created. I also checked 'layer mask hides effects', this just means that the styles will only follow the shape and not the mask and so will be hidden if we brush over it with black in the mask. I tend to almost always have this ticked as it is annoying when you add a style and it follows the mask.

Step 23

Here I've added more lines, still below the man, using exactly the same technique as we did before. Here are the ones I added:

Conclusion

I've kept this tutorial reasonably flexible so you should be able to adapt it to fit any subject or color scheme by just changing small parts. I hope here you have learned how to use layer masks effectively as I think they were used in almost every step. So just have fun with techniques I have shown you here and I hope you find something useful to do with them.

Click on image to enlarge.

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