[Award Winner] Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP(and PS)

[torstan]

Glad to be of help. Good work on the tute!

[The Cartographist]

Nice Tut! I look forward to trying the stuff out (no time right now)...

[Map Vandal]

This tutorial is a perfect example of why I joined this forum. Thanks!

[Hafnium]

Awesome tutorial. Thanks. *REPPED*

[ajwa68]

Nicely done

I've been blundering around layer styles in GIMP for a couple of days now. Nice to get some clarity!

[Aylorian]

Hope it's ok to post in such an old thread - you said this was aimed at helping people who might have been using Gimp for a while but don't use layer masks because they don't understand them. As someone completely new to Gimp (I installed it 2 days ago), I think you've saved me a LOT of future work.

I'm working through the continent tutorial by RobA and after reading that whole thread, all 39 pages of it, I came across this tutorial. It has helped me already - I have completed the new version of the mountain tutorial by RobA but want one of my mountains to have different colors. It was easy to do by just adding a layer mask over the mountains, duplicating the layer, removing the mountain in question from one layer mask and removing all but the mountain in question in the other layer mask. I was then free to experiment with noise, gradients, bumps etc on the one mountain without affecting the rest.

Considering I'm 2 days into using Gimp, I'm very pleased with being able to to this kind of stuff already - thanks to this and RobA's tutorial!

[zenram]

Well, i was following this tutorial and it was kinda difficult to read, since i have to scroll up and down and change pages, so i suddenly came with the idea of making it a PDF file, so i copied it to word and printed it on PDF, but, it was not enough, so i could not resist the temptation of actually MAKE a PDF version of it, after all, i have used so much your great advices, that im glad that i can do something useful.

As you can see i didn't do something that complicated, i tried to do a simple and readable document for easy use.

1. I used the cartographers Guild Logo, if that's wrong, i can remove it easily.

2. I don't edited the content, but if the author don't like what i did, i can delete the file.

XD

[Avengeil]

This is a really helpful tutorial.
I got two of my top-priority list unanswered questions answered,masks and gradients.
Repped and rated 5 stars.

[Aivehn]

Well, after this tutorial, I'm trading in my eye patch and parrot for a mask!

Thanks for the tutorial. I've been playing with layer masks the better part of the last 2 days, and I see a long and happy future with them. Rated the thread +5!

Back to the GIMP for me now.

[Jaxilon]

Well, I recently realized that I never mentioned how much this tutorial has helped me out and I wanted to step in and remedy that.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. I wasn't understanding how to use a layer mask on my own but once I buckled down and went through this process I have to admit I use in every project. I can't tell you how many times I found myself wishing I hadn't erased something and having to recreate it (or carry around a bunch of duplicate layers "just in case" I needed them). Now, it's such an easy thing to modify the mask instead.

If you happen to not quite get the concept of layer masks I encourage you to follow this tutorial and ask the questions until you do. You won't be sorry.