In today’s Photoshop tutorial, you will learn about Clipping Mask and how can you create them. With the help of Clipping Mask in Photoshop, you can show and hide different parts of a layer and can fit images in different shapes. By creating Clipping Mask in Photoshop, you can make a custom photo layout, new frames for images or, beautiful typography.
Let’s take a closer look to it.
Table of Contents
What is a Clipping Mask?
Clipping Mask in Photoshop is a way to control the visibility of a layer. In simple words, it is a layer clipped inside another layer.
Clipping Mask might seem similar to Layer Mask but it is not. In Layer Mask, black and white colors are used to show and hide different parts of a layer. But, in Clipping Mask, the content and transparency of one layer are used to control the visibility of another layer.
Let’s see in detail how Clipping Mask is created in Photoshop.
How to create a Clipping Mask in Photoshop?
To create a Clipping Mask in Photoshop, a minimum of two layers are required. It is a simple task once your layers are in the right order. Photoshop has a pre-set feature of Create Clipping Mask, with help of which you can convert a layer into a clipping mask within a minute.
In the below steps, I will show you how you can create a Clipping Mask of an image and put it inside a blank photo frame.
Now follow the step by step process mentioned below-
Step 1
Create a new document in Photoshop with an image of blank photo frame. This will be the background layer.
Step 2
Now create a new layer by clicking on the Create a New Layer icon in the Layers Panel.
Step 3
After creating a new layer, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the Tool Panel and make a selection inside the photo frame. The area in which you want to place your clipped image will be selected in this step.
Step 4
In this step, we will fill color in our selection. Make sure the Layer 1 is selected and click on Edit in the Menu Bar then select Fill.
Fill the selection with a solid color and then press Ctrl + D to Deselect.
Step 5
In this step, we will place the image that we want to clip in Photoshop. The image layer of which we want to create a Clipping Mask will be at the top.
After placing the image, make sure the image layer is selected. Then click on Layer in the Menu Bar and select Create Clipping Mask.
This is how you can create a Clipping Mask in Photoshop.
After creating the Clipping Mask, if you want you can move the clipped image to determine which part of the image you want to make visible. You can even freely transform the size of the clipped image.
To move the clipped image, select the image layer and then select the Move Tool from the Tool Panel. Now with the help of the Move Tool, you can freely move and set the image.
So in this Photoshop Tutorial, you have learned about Clipping Mask, How it is created in Photoshop and, how to move clipped image.
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