# Photoshop CS3: Regarding "painting" in a layer mask



## jope88 (Nov 20, 2008)

hey guys, I have a question about layer masks. So you have your mask and then you paint in black whatever effect you want to remove on that masked layer. This is my situation; I have my paintbrush set at 50% opacity and paint over an area (call it area X). Now when I go back to area X and paint over it again it would turn too 100% opacity instead of 50% (the paint adds on to whatever is already there). Is there anyway that I can keep area X at 50% opacity even if I paint over it again?

I often mask out part of an image, zoom out, then zoom back in to paint closer to the subject I'm masking. When I do this its nearly impossible to paint closer to the subject without going over what I've already masked out (or painted), resulting in 100% opacity when I only want 50%!

Sorry for making this so long-winded but I can't explain it any better


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## jope88 (Nov 20, 2008)

I figured it out with help from another forum.

I'll quote aoi-hoshi from deviantart:

"The mask reads opacity not only by opacity of the brush, but the percent of black in the shade that you are painting in. In other words, paint on the mask with 50% gray at 100% opacity, and all areas with this shade of gray will have 50% transparency. Also, since 50% gray is already at 100% opacity, painting over it again will not yield any different results.

50% gray should be in the default photoshop swatches, but you can always derive it from the color picker (0% Saturation, 50% Brightness; the rest don't matter)."


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## andrew99 (Nov 25, 2008)

What a great tip!  Photoshop is probably the one program where things seem so simple when someone explains it to you, but seems very counter-intuitive when trying to learn it on your own!


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## Big Mike (Nov 25, 2008)

Another tip for masking.

I like to add a solid color layer at about 15-30% opacity between the layers that I'm working with.  This basically replicates the 'quick mask mode' and can often make it easier to see the edges of the mask.


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## femina (Dec 13, 2008)

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