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Dexter

Spring!

You can do that?

Smiling Child

[schen]

I was working on an easy one.  Just some little black spots all over the picture.  I started zooming in and stamping out the spots with clone stamp and healing brush.  Then I saw some "white spots" on the dress.  Till I stamped out half of the white spots, I did not realize that they were part of the design of the dress 

I figured if I painted the layer mask black over the places where the spots were, the spots in the original would be revealed.  But how do I know where the spots were when I was looking at the layer with them removed?  If I clicked off the eye (visibility) of the top layer, I would be able to see the locations of the spots but I could not paint the layer mask.

What I ended up doing was to reveal the spots by turning off the eye of the layer; stuck a pointer on the monitor pointing to the spot; turned on the eye and paint at the location where the spot was and the spot magically appeared.

It was quite tedious to go back and forth with the visibility of the layer.  Is there an easier way I can do this?

[glennab]

Hi Chen

If you're using Photoshop, you can change the opacity of the layer mask in the alpha channel.  This is rather convoluted, but it was the only way I could make the mask work.  I duplicated the original layer, and created a solid black layer mask for the copy.  Went to channels and double clicked on the mask alpha channel, which allowed me to change the color and opacity.  I chose a red at 50% opacity.  I had to be sure that the background and copy layers, as well as the alpha channel were on to be able to see the image, but in doing that, I had a pale red mask through which I could see the image, and with a white brush paint to my heart's content to delete the mask where I wanted to see the image (with the copied layer active).  I don't understand why the original has to be on, but if it weren't, I couldn't see the image.  I found this information in the help section and then tried it out, and it does work with that odd condition of having the background layer turned on (it's not affected by the mask or any manipulation of the mask as long as it is visible but not active.  Can't figure that one out!)  Once you've done your mask work, you can then go back to the alpha channel and change it back to 100% black and the areas you want revealed will be all that's visible.

Glenna

[schen]

Glenna,

Thank you for the enlightenment.

As I was reading your reply, the answer just hit me.  Since I was using PhotoShop 7 that does not do healing using all layers, I had to make a top layer to use healing brush and preserved the original layer (unless there is another way I am not aware of).  I only had to reduce the opacity of that top layer then the spots on the background layer showed through!

[glennab]

Chen:

Simple and elegant -- always the best way!

Maybe one of us will find a use for the masking method on one of our other challenges.

Glenna

[schen]

Glenna,

Without your reply, I would not have thought about changing the opacity of the top layer.  It seems simple now after you pointed out to me.

Thanks.