7 Quick Mask
Used for making
precise selections
Found at #14 and 30 in the Toolbar diagram at left
With this tool, you can convert a selection into a mask which can be edited with any of the painting tools. Edges can be distorted, and filters, or effects applied. You can then convert the mask back into a selection.
To apply a quick mask, first make a rough selection with the lasso, or any other selection tool. Then click the quick mask button, which is the icon shown at right, above. A reddish semitransparent mask will cover all areas outside the selection boundary. Note that you don’t have to make an initial selection before clicking the quick mask button. However, doing so will cut down on the area that you will need to paint in black.
You can edit the mask by painting with any of the painting tools. Use black to add to the mask (the reddish area), and white to subtract from it. Use the switch color button, which is #28 in the toolbar diagram at left, or press X on your keyboard, to jump from black to white. Painting with gray, or any other color creates a semitransparent area sometimes used for feathering, or anti-aliasing.
Once you have the mask just the way you want it, click the standard mode button, shown at left above, to convert the mask back to a selection. If you want to save the selection for possible reuse, or just to be on the safe side, choose Selection > Save Selection. This will create an alpha channel which can be loaded as a selection any time you need it. Channels are saved, and can be accessed and edited in the Channels palette.
Note that areas which are more than 50 % transparent will not be included in the ‘marching ants’ selection outline, but they will be effective in any application that the selection is used for.
The keyboard shortcut for the quick mask is the letter Q.
The illustration on the left below, shows a rough selection which has been dragged with the lasso tool.
On the right, you see how it looks when the quick mask button has been clicked. The red mask can be painted to fit exactly against the letter outlines, if that’s what is desired.
Please note that this entire tools section has been updated from a Photoshop 6 version (which was updated from a 5.5 version). Wherever the tool is essentially the same as it was in 6, I have continued to use the screen capture illustrations made using that version (as in the two pictures below). So if you notice cosmetic discrepancies in the options bar, menus or palettes, that’s why. In all instances where features were added or changed, I have made new screen captures.
However, as you can see the red color of the mask would make it very hard to mask a red subject. To change the masks color, double click the quick mask icon in the toolbox. Its options dialog box will then appear as shown below. Clicking on the color square will bring up the Color picker, where you can choose any color you like for the mask. To see how the color picker works, see the illustration and notes at the bottom of the Foreground and Background color page.
You can also decide if the color will indicate the masked area, or the unmasked area by clicking one of the radio buttons under Color Indicates.
Choose how see-through the mask is with the Opacity setting.
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