Sponsored by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Learn More

Vector Mask

 

Corey shows you how to use a vector mask to pull objects from their background.

Corey Barker

Corey Barker is Executive Producer of PlanetPhotoshop.com and is an Education and Curriculum Developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Corey has also made numerous appearances on the highly rated podcast, PhotoshopUser TV, and is co-host of Layers TV.

33 Comments

  1. New Video Tutorial | Tip of the Day | Planet Photoshop Pingback on — September 21, 2008 @ 11:26 am

    [...] masks are also resolution-independent meaning they can be scaled to virtually any size. Click here to view this tutorial. Spread the [...]

  2. svealien said on — September 21, 2008 @ 12:20 pm

    Corey :) Thank you for everything. Greetings from Dubai

  3. ficher said on — September 21, 2008 @ 1:43 pm

    Thank you Corey you are great. Greetings from France

  4. Oat said on — September 21, 2008 @ 10:17 pm

    Wow. I use paths all the time and this will help A LOT. Thank you.

  5. Eli said on — September 25, 2008 @ 8:44 pm

    AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!!!

  6. Mark R said on — September 26, 2008 @ 7:39 pm

    awesome tutorial, I enjoy every exercise you teach, thank you again

  7. Jean said on — September 29, 2008 @ 5:52 pm

    Great Tutorial. I didn’t as well as I wanted on the Vector masks in Photoshop.Now, I have an idea of how much easier it is. Thanks!

  8. Brook said on — September 30, 2008 @ 2:01 am

    This was a truly great batch of tutorials. I use these all the time to enhance my quality and skill. Most of what I learned (as seen on my site http://www.sterlingprm.com) is from him!

  9. vu said on — September 30, 2008 @ 12:50 pm

    Thanks you for showing this tutorial that I’ve been waiting for so long. You are the man, Corey

  10. Alvaro said on — October 2, 2008 @ 5:36 am

    Greetings from Peru

  11. snicers said on — October 6, 2008 @ 3:04 am

    Great, exactly what I was looking for!

  12. jean-pierre prieur said on — October 10, 2008 @ 2:58 pm

    super cool… I’ never think to use this vector mask
    thanks

  13. Ofer L said on — October 11, 2008 @ 7:02 am

    This tutorial rises above every cutting tutorial i have ever read.
    Thank you very much, keep on teaching ! ! !

    Ofer.

  14. Larry Towell said on — December 26, 2008 @ 5:45 pm

    Thanks Corey, Great Tutorial!

    This site is amazing!

    -Larry

  15. tion74 said on — March 22, 2009 @ 11:02 am

    Thank for the tutorial, I learned a lot while I watched the tutorial. :)

  16. Yoshy said on — June 19, 2009 @ 5:29 am

    Absolutely interesting! Thank you! =)

  17. ZeroGrafics said on — July 17, 2009 @ 3:54 pm

    Thanks a lot Corey. Very educational. I always just used the pen tool to create a path and then clear the parts that I didn’t want (the background), but this looks like a much more smooth and controlled method. ~ZeroGrafics

  18. Alex said on — August 23, 2009 @ 9:53 pm

    Corey thank you so much! i barely even knew what that tool was for before this tutorial. greetings from Canada =D

  19. Martin said on — October 13, 2009 @ 4:26 pm

    You genius! I’ve cut out loads of times but never thought about doing it on a mask. Thank you so much :D

  20. Dada said on — October 16, 2009 @ 2:40 pm

    Hey Corey

    i ve seen dozens of tutorials on vector masks

    Many were well enough tho i was still a bit in the shade

    Your ability to teach and speak is heads above the rest

    i cant wait to see more of your videos

    Cheers

  21. Bold as love said on — November 2, 2009 @ 5:30 am

    Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge in such a nice and inteligible way!
    I’ve been struggling for so long, and a last I’ve got a clever and clean way to cut objects from the background. That saves me hours of work, fantastic, thanks again!
    Gonna go through all your tutorials…

  22. Cassio said on — December 27, 2009 @ 1:44 pm

    Really cool Tut
    Tanks from Portugal.

  23. Cassio said on — December 27, 2009 @ 1:45 pm

    Really cool Tut
    Greetings from Portugal

  24. Luis said on — December 30, 2009 @ 4:06 pm

    Thank you Corey I’m currently learning PS and I found this website the best classroom I could ever have. Happy New Year 2010

  25. Franz Glaser said on — March 16, 2010 @ 10:37 am

    Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge. Great tutorial. regards from Chile

  26. tayfun said on — May 17, 2010 @ 7:06 pm

    visitors to this site, you’ll be really good now always very nice videos

  27. Massiel said on — September 16, 2010 @ 4:07 pm

    Hi,

    Everything was really useful until I tried it myself… :( when I select the pen tool and start to trace over the object it fills randomly with colour! I know it’s probably some little thing I haven’t deseselected but it’s driving me crazy! Please help :)

    Thanks

  28. flitzzz said on — November 7, 2010 @ 9:12 am

    thanks a bunch.

  29. Teena said on — January 7, 2011 @ 6:58 pm

    wow. that was fantastic. I’ve so far ignored vectors in my PS adventures just because I thought them too diffficult to get my head round. This will be the beginning of a beautiful freindshiip. Can’t thank you enough :)

  30. Mahesh Phuyal said on — April 1, 2011 @ 1:19 am

    its so good.

  31. Travis said on — June 24, 2011 @ 1:59 pm

    Great tutorial Corey, as usual. I have a question that no one seems to be able to answer, so I’m going to the top link in the chain. Can the points in a vector mask be individually addressed and moved after the mask is created in such a way as to move the pixels inside of the mask accordingly? Thanks in advance…if anyone knows answer, it will be you.

    Travis

  32. Making a Mask in Photoshop | RCC Digital Imaging Pingback on — August 28, 2011 @ 1:12 pm

    [...] Here is a link to a tutorial on how to make a vector mask: http://www.planetphotoshop.com/vector-mask.html [...]

  33. Art 118 – Fall2011 » Blog Archive » 11) Layer and Vector Mask and Path Tool - This blog is for Art 118 – 802, 803, 804 and 807 at UWM Pingback on — September 20, 2011 @ 9:12 pm

    [...] http://www.planetphotoshop.com/vector-mask.html [...]

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Photoshop Tutorials

  • Flare Effects

    Corey has a cool trick for creating a flare brush and see how one effect can lead to another.

  • Hollywood Touch-Ups

    See how you can add some subtle touches to give that green screen studio shot the Hollywood treatment.

  • 3D Christmas Ornaments

    Corey shows how to create reflective holiday ornaments using 3D in Photoshop.

  • 3D Distortions

    This week Corey has a cool new trick for using 3D reflections in a rather creative way!

Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP


 

Create A Composite Layer

If you have a multilayer composition and you
want to apply an effect to all the layers at once, don’t flatten the layers–use a composite layer instead. Hide the layers you want excluded, and press Shift-Command-Option-E (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E). A new layer will be created at the top containing a merged copy of all the visible layers.

Another option is to create a new layer at the top of the stack and make it active. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) each layer you want to include to make those layers active, as well. Press Option-Command-E (PC: Alt-Ctrl-E).
by Colin Smith

Read More Tips

Tip of the Day
 
 
Kelby Training
 
DVD Special
Online Training
Kelby Training