I have a companion book on my @VictoriaKaer profile with writing tips. This book will cover some basic elements of cover design as well as some dos and don'ts of design. I also have information about requesting from a designer here on Wattpad.
I ce...
I've mentioned layer masks a few times so let's discuss them a little bit more.
A layer mask is a tool that is offered in a few programs though it tends to work slightly differently from program to program. I use it quite a bit in Photoshop but I never did get the hang of it in Gimp.
What a layer mask does is allow you to erase things from an image and if you mess up you can easily put it back. It makes it very easy to adjust layers. In Photoshop you add your layer mask and then use your brush tool. If you have the color set to black it will erase, if it's set to white it will put back what you erased. The cool thing about a layer mask is you can make adjustments to text without rasterizing the layer. Which means you can go back and change it if need be. I use it a lot, especially when I need to change the color of things, I add a color layer, clip it, then erase using the layer mask to make certain only what I want colored gets colored. It's nice because if I decide at some point I don't like the color adjustment I did, it's easy to change it, whereas if you adjusted the actual color on the base image you'd have to begin again.
One of the things I use the layer mask for a lot is changing hair color or eye color.
I used this PNG on a recent cover and one of the things the customer said was a must, the guy had to have black hair. He also needed to have a sword. It was difficult to find an image that would work so I had to get creative.
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Now it isn't as simple as 'slap a black layer on him and poof his hair is black'. It takes a lot of work to get it to look as close to natural as you can get.
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The layer mask is indicated by the white square attached to the image. The black spots you see on them are the places where I erased things. I also used a layer mask to erase the ax where it extended above his hand so I could replace it with a sword.
The layers within the bracket are all the layers for his hair. You'll notice there are two layers for the PNG of the man. The layer within the bracket Is a desaturated duplicate with everything erased (using the layer mask) except his hair. Why did I do this? Because it's easier sometimes to change certain colors if the original image is black and white. Not always, but many times. His hair was blond so when I overlaid the black layers it just wouldn't turn black.
