Aaarghhhhmphffhumoaaahh...ENLIGHTEN ME PLEASE! (mod question)

[Gurra]

Again: Ahhhrrrrgggggmphfmohaaaa!!!!!!!!

EMLIGHTEN ME PLEASE!

(for the last time)

Program: Photoshop 7.0

Vision: Various vehicle mods.

Problem: Masking

Used resources: Gautrek's How to mod(Basic tutorial), Photoshop literature, internet, trial and error, agressivness, despair, suicidal tendencies.

Results so far: none.

The tutorial on Gautrek's home page is decent enough, except for one thing-it´s Paint shop. And that is crucial when it comes to one thing; the masking, since the method described there doesn´t seem to work out in the same way in Photoshop.

Now I need to know:

all of you that create mods for vehicles, is there a simple way to mask the details, preserving the contours and so on, or do you actually spend hours and hours on creating a mask, bit by bit? Or do you (not) simply create your own details, by hand when needed to?

Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stickle: I thought that masking was done in a couple of minutes, and then the actual deploying of art and camo was done in a couple of weeks.

It´s not that I am totally unaware of various methods to achieve a result, at least theoratically, but it´s the fact that none of these methods do seem to work good enough.

!!!!If anyone with insigt could just reveal to me how to achieve the same kind of masking in Photoshop as mentioned in Gautrek's mod tutorial, life would be perfect!!!!

I bet Picasso never had to figure out how to put the brush against the canvas. :mad:

If there isn´t a good answer to this, I will crawl back in to the cave and only come out to paint Tamiya plastic kits when I recive one for christmas.

Gurra

[MikeyD]

I don't know if you'd call this help or not, but I've used Photoshop for years and years, I'm employed at a bigtime advertising agency, I've done well over 100 mods by now, and I DON'T KNOW PHOTOSHOP MASKING FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND!!!!!!

From that you can infer two things: (1) You can live a happy mod life without knowing masking. (2) I'm incompetent at my job and need to find out how masking works, before they fire my arse!

[GoofyStance]

Perhaps I can help, as I've been using Photoshop for some time now, both for work and play.

To apply a mask to an entire layer (assuming you've put the details/contours on their own layer), you simply click on Layer | Add Layer Mask | Hide All

If you want to apply a mask to specific details on a layer, but not the whole layer, then you have to decide how you want to select the details. The Magic Wand, a Marquee selection, the Lasso tool, etc. You can use the "Edit in Quick Mask Mode" (Q) to fine-tune the selection with the Eraser tool and the fore/background colors set to Black/White. Black adds to the mask, white subtracts from it, and Gray (gotten via reducing the opacity of Black) makes the mask partially visible. Once the selection is finalized, click on Layer | Add Layer Mask | Hide Selection

These steps will hide the selected feature(s) and preserve them. You can duplicate the layer mask and apply it to another layer by Alt-dragging the mask layer to the target layer.

I hope this helps. If not, could you be more specific in what you need?

[AndrewTF]

Alright, I consider myself kind of a minor Photoshop layer-mask guru, so I took a look and think I figured it out. The terminology used in the tutorial is a little oversimplified (which is not a bad thing in and of itself) which makes it a little confusing when trying to apply PSP techniques to photoshop.

I messed around with the tutorial and this is what I found out: In Photoshop-speak, he's making a duplicate of the original art layer, then making into a high-contrast alpha channel from which to make a layer mask.

You can do this in Photoshop but the procedure is somewhat different:

Make a new "pinkies" knockout layer per the tutorial

Duplicate the bottom artwork layer, then desaturate it, but DON'T up the lightness +100% as this will result in a totally white image! Adjust the brightness and contrast per the tutorial.

Now, here's where it's different: select and copy the gray image. Switch to the "Channels" pallette and create a new channel. This will be named "Alpha 1". Paste the image into the channel.

Switch back to the layers pallette. Discard the grayscale layer and create a new Dirt Layer as in the tutorial. Now go to the select pull-down menu and click "load selection". Choose "Alpha 1" from the pop-up menu and click ok.

Are you still with me?

You'll see a bunch of "marching ants" on the image that may or may not look like the vehicle. Now go to the "Layer" pull down menu, mouse over "add layer mask" and click on "hide selection". You'll see a new thumbnail of the grayscale image to the right of the layer thumbnail in the layers pallette.

Now feel free to paint away on that layer without obliterating the details. Make sure you're not painting on the layer mask, though.

Hope that helps.

Note to MikeyD: Photoshop masking is really supercool! Once you've learned the intricacies of it you'll wonder how you lived without it. It will change your life.

[GoofyStance]

Ugh - helps to read the question more carefully, and to look at the tutorial

[MikeyD]

"It will change your life."

Considering that I've had a bad cold all week, changing my life wouldn't be a bad outcome.

[Gurra]

I think there was an answer to my hardships! Most interesting. I have succeded in creating something that to a certain degree preserves the details. Now I have to build on this.

Thanks to Andrew, and thanks to all of you for your answers.

(I might just be back... )

[gautrek]

If you do manage to sort this out let me know how you did it and i will add this to my tutorial.

Drop me a mail with anything that you have to do differant and i will try to do another tutorial to cover photoshop.

[Gurra]

Hmm. I would be glad to contribute to such a tutorial, but after some more testing, it seems I haven´t succeded.

Andrew, exactly how should this kind of mask behave? After I have followed your instructions letter by letter - and I´m sure there is no mistake - I end up with a mask that behaves just as if I paint with an opacity set to about 50 - 60 percent. Is this the thing?

[AndrewTF]

Originally posted by Gurra:

Hmm. I would be glad to contribute to such a tutorial, but after some more testing, it seems I haven´t succeded.

Andrew, exactly how should this kind of mask behave? After I have followed your instructions letter by letter - and I´m sure there is no mistake - I end up with a mask that behaves just as if I paint with an opacity set to about 50 - 60 percent. Is this the thing?

I think you're on the right track. The trick seems to be getting the contrast on the b/w image for the mask very high. Think of the mask this way: the black areas totally mask the image while the white areas let everything be seen. Any gray bits are differing areas of transparency, so the effect you described above is correct, so you want to try to get as much black and white as possible with not very much gray.

Play around with it some more and see what you get.

FYI, what I usually do is experiment with the dirt layer's blending mode and opacity. I find "soft light" works pretty well for dirt and dust. Start off with a dark brown color--the blending mode will cause it to appear much lighter. I then usually apply a layer mask and paint in specific areas that I want masked.

[Gurra]

Thanks for your help. I´m slowly making some progress now - with my first mod

Since it is not so easy to teach subtle Photoshop techniques in a forum thread, is there any tutorial or tips and tricks site in particular that you could direct me to? There are loads of tutorial sites on the internet, but very few that concerns this kind of thing. I found an excellent one that covers the use of masks to apply camo, for instance, and that really boosted me. Anything that comes to mind?

[AstroCat]

Hi all!

I'm resurrecting this thread back to the top!

I am in the same situation as Gurra right now. I have followed all the instructions and tutorials I can find but PS does not seem to treat masks the same as PSP. I have photoshop CS and Paintshop Pro 8.

I used the same mask image for both and have gotten totally different results from both programs. PSP acts like you want it to and PS does not.

Please help? Because overall I like PS better and would like to keep using it for all my modding needs.

I could send someone 2 files, 1 PSP and 1 PS both set up the same to demonstrate the problem. Any takers?

Thanks! ...and if this doesn't work out I guess I'll just have to use PSP when I need to do masking, but I bet I'm just doing something wrong.

Jordan "AstroCat"

[AndrewTF]

PhotoShop's masking tools are really very good, it's just a matter of PSP vs. PS technique. I found that I had to monkey with the levels settings quite a bit to get an appropriate contrast for the mask to work as indicated in the tutorial since using the indicated settings in PS led to something totally unworkable.

[AstroCat]

Yeah, it is quite a chore at the moment. It just seems so much easier in PSP to get the desired weathering effects.

In PS if you don't turn the opacity way down on the brush it will still overpower the base image even with the mask. ugh...It just seems like a lot more work in PS

One thing that would help...Can you tell me what the PS equivalent to PSP density is in regards to the brush?

Any other pointers?

Thanks so much for the help!

Jordan "AstroCat"

Originally posted by AndrewTF:

PhotoShop's masking tools are really very good, it's just a matter of PSP vs. PS technique. I found that I had to monkey with the levels settings quite a bit to get an appropriate contrast for the mask to work as indicated in the tutorial since using the indicated settings in PS led to something totally unworkable.

[AndrewTF]

I'm not sure what that's analagous to since I've never used PSP. Try the "hardness" setting on the brush palette. Maybe try "flow", too.

Also, try using the different layer blending modes to achieve a better effect.

[AstroCat]

Ok, Thanks for the help. I'll keep working at it.

Jordan "AstroCat"

Originally posted by AndrewTF:

I'm not sure what that's analagous to since I've never used PSP. Try the "hardness" setting on the brush palette. Maybe try "flow", too.

Also, try using the different layer blending modes to achieve a better effect.