How to Cheat in Photoshop CS4

 

■ A dog jumping through a hoop. Or rather, it isn’t; in the original version, above, the dog layer is in front of the clown layer. By making a layer mask for the dog, we can hide that portion of it that overlaps the front half of the hoop, making it appear to be leaping through it. A simple technique, but one that makes all the difference.

3Hiding and showing

THE EASIEST WAY of removing part of a layer is to delete it. But deletion is irrevocable: you can’t go back later and undelete the lost elements. Using a layer mask, however, forces you ...