Quick Mask

• 1). Click the "File" menu, then click the "Open" command. Use the "Open" dialog box's controls to move to a folder with a photo on which you'd like to try masking. Double-click the picture to load it for editing.
  
  
• 2). Click the tool palette icon shaped like a lasso to run the "Lasso" tool. This tool lets you select image regions of arbitrary shapes.
  
  
• 3). Drag the mouse over an image region you'd like to select, such as the face in a photo. Releases the mouse to complete the selection, then click the icon at the bottom of the tool palette to run the "Quick mask" command. Photoshop will turn all regions of the picture outside the selection red. The "Quick mask" tool lets you shape a selection region by using the Paintbrush tool.
  
  
• 4). Click the paintbrush icon in the tool palette to run the "Paintbrush" command, then drag into the image region that isn't colored red. Your brushstrokes will add red to that region, which shrinks the original selection region.
  
  
• 5). Click the eraser icon on the tool palette, then drag on any red area of the image to remove the red. This action increases your selection region. Click the "Quick mask" icon again to turn off the "Quick mask" mode. Notice that the selection region you defined in step 3 is now changed. The selection region now corresponds to the non-red regions you painted while in "Quick mask" mode.
  
  
• 6). Click the "Inverse" command of the "Select" menu to select all the unselected areas of your image, then press "Delete" to leave only the image region you initially selected.
  
  

Layers

• 1). Click the "File" menu's "Open" command, then navigate to and double-click a file you'd like to edit.
  
  
• 2). Click the paper-shaped icon of the "Layers" palette to create a new layer, then click the paintbrush icon from the tool palette to run the "Paintbrush" command.
  
  
• 3). Click on the image, then drag to paint anywhere on the image. You're actually painting on the layer, not the image, which you'll see in a moment. The layer acts as a transparency over the image you loaded. This characteristic keeps your original image intact.
  
  
• 4). Click the eye icon for the highlighted layer in the "Layers" palette. Your brush strokes disappear, which reveals the intact original image you loaded in step 1. Click the button that's replaced the eye icon to restore the icon and the visibility of your painting layer.
  
  
• 5). Right-click the highlighted layer and click "Merge down." Photoshop will merge all your brush strokes onto the background layer. The "Layers" palette now shows only the background layer.