Quick Photoshop Trick: Use Layer Masks

Next time you’re trying to remove a background from an image using Photoshop (and you haven’t heeded my other advice), you’ll be doing yourself a huge, huge favor by using a Layer Mask.

It’s really quite simple.

With the layer you want to remove the background from selected (Mine is empty. How’s that for a Zen puzzle? Remove a background from an empty layer, and you shall find peace.), click the layer mask icon in the Layers palette (see below).


It’ll add something that looks like this:


Then all you have to do is use a black, soft-edged paintbrush to paint away what you don’t want (or use the pen tool, if you’re feeling like a pro). Anytime you mess up, you can simply press X to switch the brush color to white, and wherever you paint, the stuff you just got rid of will come back, because it was never actually erased - it was only “masked.” Resize your brush, zoom in, zoom out, wash, rinse, and repeat. You know, the usual trial and error stuff. At least this time you won’t actually lose your original photo because you forgot to save it as a new file before you started working on it.

This is what’s known as non-destructive editing. Lord knows you could probably use a little bit more of that in your life.