KylieM Designs

Following on from the fantastic response I have had with the Photo and Page Masks I have put together this tutorial for you on how to use masks. There are many techniques to achieve different effects, and this is just one way! If you are interested in creating your own Masks check out Tutorial 1.

For this tutorial I am following the process used to create this layout (again in Photoshop CS4/CS3)

And I used this Page Mask

Firstly open your document, I am creating a 12 x 12 LO here

Then open up your background paper, here I am using the plain cardboard from my Summer Sunshine Kit.

Then open the Photo/Page mask of your choice, I am using PageMask #3, and drag onto a new layer on top of your background.

Then choose a second background layer that you would like to wrap around the mask, and drag this on top as a 3rd layer.

The next step is to create a clipping mask around the mask that I have created, the second layer. There aer short cuts to doing this, in Photoshop CS4 it is 'ctrl+alt+g', but I have shown you the menu version of doing this. Select the third layer, or the layer of your paper you are clipping, and going to the 'Layers' menu and click 'Create Clipping Mask' (or use the short cut)

You will now see that in your layers palette the third layer has 'attached' itself to the mask and on your document the background follows the shape of the mask.

You can now leave it as is and add your elements, photos and journaling on top of this layer. For my layout though I wanted a softer look, and thus adjusted the blending mode and fill %.

First, using the blend modes menu on the layers palette I selected Hard Light (although you can experiment with all of them to get the look you are trying to achieve, have a play as you can get all sorts of different effects). Again you could leave it here, but I wanted a softer look still.

So I then adjusted the Fill scrubber on the layers palette, I adjusted it to 50%, but again have a play to get the look you want.

Then all you need to do is add your photos and elements to create your LO. You can use this technique on all the masks, replace papers with photos to change the shape of the your photos. The uses are endless, just dig in a have a go. And just in case you forgot, here is my final product.

You can download Pagemask 3 here, and don't forget to check the main freebie downloads page for all my photo and page masks.