Question about Grant's Tools

[CarolLHB]

Hi-
Can someone explain Quick Mask in Grant's tools, please? What is it's purpose, and what's the best way to use it? I know that it's a PS tool and wondered if it could be used instead of the selection brush in PSE3.
Thanks!:)

[Wendy]

Hi Carol ...

You can use quick mask instead of the selection brush and an advantage is that you can reduce the opacity of it which you can't do with the selection brush ... that can be useful for things like semi transparent wings.


Wendy

[CarolLHB]

Sorry, Wendy-I'm not sure I'm understanding what you mean.:o

[Wendy]

Hi Carol ...

The quick mask is sort of like the selection brush ... when you go into it you use a brush to paint the mask in shades of black and white (now thats confusing because onscreen it shows up as red :) )... when you are finished you can convert that mask into a selection.

However ... say you are selecting an insect with transparent wings well you can select the body with the brush using black as your foreground colour but then select the wings using gray. When you cut and paste the insect into a new image the body will be solid but the wings will be partially see through. So the new background will show through the wings and make it look more real ...


Wendy

[willpresley]

Finally it sinks in for me. I hadn't used it because I didn't know how or what it was suppose to do. Thanks a bunch for explaining it Wendy.

[CarolLHB]

Thanks, Wendy-much clearer now-and how cool is that? One last question (yeah, right...:rolleyes:). I "painted" a selection-do I have to so something to get the ants? My son says that in CS2 you hit "q", but that only changes tools in Elements.

:)

[GaryK]

Hi Carol

Just double click on the Masks Standard button (for me it's right beside the quickmask button) that converts it.

:)

[CarolLHB]

Thanks, Gary! http://www.millan.net/minimations/smileys/flowerysmile.gif (http://www.millan.net)

[Wendy]

Glad that it helped ... now I have to admit that I rarely use quick mask :) I'm afraid that my favourite selection tool is the pen !!

Wendy

[CarolLHB]

Wendy-
Pen as in pen tool or pen and tablet? Since getting the tablet I've been using the selection brush, which is ok, but for the lag between the stroke and the red appearing. There is no lag with Grant's tools, which makes for far fewer touch ups. Plus, quick or layer mask, I find that painting the selection with the option of just switching to white to correct much more efficient. Gotta love this program-as soon as I figure out what seems like a good way to do something, something that works better for me comes along:)

Onward and upward!:D

[Carbone]

Carol,

In Photoshop (full), you have another tool to make selection, the Pen Tool. It not only lets you make selections, but the main objective of this tool is to make paths. Paths can then be stroke (with a brush), turned into selections, used a base for putting text on them, etc.

Ray

[Wendy]

The Pen tool in Photoshop is one of those things you either love or hate ... I just love it.

Its does straight lines, curved lines ... any sort of lines and once you get used to it then it is quick !! ... plus it gives a clean crisp outline when you convert the path into a selection :)

Wendy

[CarolLHB]

Thank you friends!:)