Use selections and layer masks to combine photos

With selections and layer masks in Photoshop on the web, you can isolate specific areas of an image or control its visibility in your design.

In this video, I'll introduce you to these essential techniques, then I'll show you how to use them in your daily work.

If you'd like to follow along with me, be sure to have the Selections and Layer Masks file open in the application.

Or if you prefer, you can apply these techniques directly to any image of your own.

I'm here in Photoshop on the web, and I've opened up the sample image.

In order to make changes to part of the design, I'll need to select what it is that I'd like to change.

I'll start by clicking on the topmost layer in the Layers panel.

Then here on the left in the Tool panel, I'll slide down to the third icon to the Select category.

We're going to go through each one of these together.

For now I'll start with the Rectangle marquee here towards the bottom.

When I click on it, my icon changes to a crosshair or a + sign.

And when I click and drag on the canvas, I create my first selection.

The animated line that you see here defines the edges of that selection and is often referred to as the marching ants.

If I want to extend or reduce the selected area, these icons here in the Properties area of the Toolbar, allow me to do that.

By default, it's going to start with my first selection.

If I click on that second icon, I can come in and add to my selection.

If I get a little carried away and add too much, I can come in and remove part of the selection by switching over to the Subtract from selection icon.

Now when I click and drag in an area, that area is removed from the current selection.

If you're a fan of keyboard shortcuts, you can always streamline this by holding down the Shift key to add to the area.

Notice my cursor has a + sign now or hold the Option key on Mac or Alt on Windows to subtract.

Well now with this rather odd area selected on the canvas, I can apply changes to just what I have selected.

Say I want to paint a color in the selected area.

When I select the Brush Tool in the Tool panel and start painting on the canvas, notice that the color change applies only to the selected area even though my brush size is rather large, and I'm painting outside the selection area.

This is a key feature when it comes to selections.

They allow you to define which part of your design is going to be affected.

Now that you have a sense of how to add and remove content within a selection.

Let's go ahead and use this in action.

I'll undo the brushstrokes that I made, and I'll deselect that area by clicking the Deselect button in the Contextual taskbar here below.

When I hide the first three layers in this image, I can see the backmost layer, a colorful gradient, what I'd like to do is select and remove the background fill behind these flowers so that I can expose the gradient.

I'll begin by keeping the two top layers hidden with the flowers layer and the color gradient layer remaining visible.

I want to select the green background and remove it.

And for that I'll try out the Magic Wand Selection Tool.

The Magic Wand will find and select any adjacent pixel with a similar color or tone based on a specified tolerance range.

Notice when I click on it, I have those same selection icons in the Properties area to add or remove from the selection.

I can also control the Tolerance level using the slider here in the Tool panel.

I'll go ahead and leave the Tolerance level at its default.

And I'll click somewhere in the green area to select it.

Notice the marching ants are now around all of the flowers.

Since the goal is to remove the green, I'll try the obvious approach and I'll just press the Delete key on the keyboard.

I now see the gradient background behind the flowers, but I've gone in and deleted or altered the layer with the flowers.

And if I were to close Photoshop, at this point, the changes to that background color would be permanent.

I can apply the same sort of visual change in a non-destructive, non-permanent way using a layer mask.

Let's go ahead and try that instead.

I'll click on the Undo button to revert my changes.

Now, instead of pressing the Delete key, I'll select the third icon and the Contextual task bar to invert my selection.

Basically, selecting all the flowers on the canvas without selecting the green background.

With that set, I'll convert the selection to a mask by clicking on the Create mask button.

I can tell I've done it correctly when I see that the flower layer now has a mask thumbnail to the right, and I can see the rainbow gradient underneath.

Now let's work on the main subject of this composition, the man.

I'll click on the Eye icon for that layer to make it visible.

I want to hide the green background on this layer so that I can see the flowers and the colorful gradient underneath.

Rather than use the Magic Wand selection method this time, I'll let Photoshop use some of its magic.

With the Man layer active in the Select area of the Toolbar, I'll click on Select subject.

Photoshop does a quick analysis of the layer and determines what it thinks is the subject in this case, the man.

Now, once again, I can click Create mask in the Contextual task bar, and just like that I see my nice gradient background.

Depending on the type of image, I'm working on, it might be easier to isolate the background of the image rather than the subject.

I can do that here.

I'll undo my change until the green background is visible again.

This time with the Man layer selected, in the Contextual task bar, I'll click on the second button, Remove background in one step Photoshop analyzes the image, selects all of the green background, and creates a mask to hide it.

I can see the resulting mask thumbnail here in the Layers panel.

I have one more image element that I want to add to this design, and for that I'll turn on the visibility for the top flowers layer.

What I'd like to do is keep two of these flowers over the man's sunglasses. and this is a great opportunity to share one more selection method called Quick selection.

With the top flowers layer selected in the Selection area of the Tool panel, I'll select Quick selection.

I'll go ahead and zoom in a little bit more tightly, and I'll use the Hand Tool to move those flowers into position.

As I brush over the flowers, the little marching ants let me know that I've captured them.

If I need to add or remove from the selection, I can do that as I did before by clicking the add or remove icons in the Quick selection area of the Toolbar, and with both flowers still selected, I'll click the Create layer mask icon in the Control task bar to turn the selection into a mask.

And with that, my design is done.

Although I used a variety of selection and masking approaches in this tutorial, it really depends on what your design goals are and the type of image content you're working with.

The best way for you to move forward will be to do some experimentation of your own.

I encourage you to give it a try.