Creating a Layer Mask for Airbrushing in Photoshop?

Seiphon

So I was wondering wether or not I should get a nipple ring.....

:winky:

I've been trying to learn how to colour my junk in, in photoshop for ages now, and I've seen a couple of tutorials that talk about airbrushing via layer masks. Thing is I cant see anything about how that works. I'm kind of a basic photoshop user.

This is what I can do.



I was put onto this guys tutorial on colouring but I cant decipher how he makes two layer masks ,one grey and one white?

In fact, the whole layer mask thing confuses me. I know theres a fair amount of hatred for this type of airbrushing, 'cause its not really a proffesion method, but I cant get my head around using a hard edged brush, the results always look too messy.

Heres the tutorial, but be warned its definatly NSFW!!!

http://www.artofmiravi.com/walkthru/anatomy01.html

If you want to crit the picture too, please do.

Chromatomic

In your layers palette there is a button at the bottom with a circle inside of a square. With a particular layer or group selected clicking on this button will add a layer mask.

Also if you have anything selected at the time it will turn that selection into a mask.

While the layer mask is selected, where it shows white the original layer will show through, and black will hide it.

So if you were to makes a highlight layer you would fill a layer in with white, or whatever color you're using.

Then click the layer mask button in the bottom. Select the mask (which is the white rectangle next to the layer you're working on) and fill that with black.

Now with the mask selected wherever you paint with white will reveal the original layer. Wherever you paint will black will hide that part of the layer.