I followed the same tutorial steps, but this time I set the blend mode of the mask to Overlay.
This is a pattern-paint, overlay, and paper from Christmas Wishes by Kristin Cronin-Barrow. Here are a couple other combos I thought looked good: Note: For best results, always have a paper or a colored layer below the mask you are using. Change the Blend Mode to one of the other five contrast modes to see the possible results.In the Layers panel, activate the WATERCOLOR layer.Step Five: Try Other Contrast Blend ModesĮach of the six contrast blend modes will give a slightly different result, but they all do the job of making the 50% gray pixels in the mask invisible. In the Menu Bar, choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask.Click and drag the word-overlay onto the paper. Hold down the Shift key before you let go and the watercolor will land in the center of the paper.
The WATERCOLOR layer should be the active layer. Note: As I mentioned above, this tutorial will work with any mask. In the Layers panel, rename the layer WATERCOLOR.Hold down the Shift key before you let go and the watercolor will land in the center of the paper. Click and drag the watercolor onto the paper.Open the watercolor from the download folder.Open the paper (File > Open) from the download folder.This tutorial, however, will work with any mask, any overlay, and any paper. The download comes with a colorful watercolor overlay (which I’ll use as a mask), a word overlay, and a piece of paper. Download the Per Diem pack to work with during this tutorial.Let’s take a look at how that works in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. If you set a layer’s pixels to 50% gray and change the blend mode of that layer to Hard Light, for example, the layer appears to disappear… yet, it’s still there. The Contrast Blend Modes are Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Vivid Light, Linear Light, and Pin Light. All of the Contrast modes work by lightening the lightest pixels, darkening the darkest pixels, and dropping the gray mid-tones (50% gray). The answer was found in the contrast blend modes.
So, I had to figure out how to make the watercolor disappear, yet still be able to clip to it. I just wanted to utilize the shape and varied transparency of the watercolor, not the colors in it. Recently I wanted to clip a transparent overlay to a fancy watercolor. I love to search for out-of-the-ordinary things to clip to masks. Use the magic formula of 50% gray combined with a contrast blend mode to achieve a special masking technique.