Quote Originally Posted by Freodin View Post
You should watch some starter tutorial videos. It is always helpful to know what you are doing, and it also helps to be able to know how to check out things.

In your case here, I guess you didn't correctly generate the "Land Mask" layer. (Step 19-23, part 1). Make sure that you have the "Sample merged" checkbox in the tool options for the "Magic Wand select" activated before doing the selection.

If you did that correctly, you should be able to see the selection in form of a blinking black/white line (the so called "marching ants line") between the dark sea and white land.
Freodin, I wish you'd looked at this thread months ago, and thanks! I think that may have been my mistake, too. I've decided not to revisit this tutorial until I have mastered layer masks and alpha channels

"Starter tutorials" are often too simplistic, in my experience, and writers of more advanced tutorials often don't realize that what is obvious to them is anything but to newbs like us. It's not always easy to tell which side the "marching ants" are on, either, but I suspect they are army ants, and hostile …