Heart-Shaped (Or other shape) Mask tutorial

toor

Made In: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended
Difficulty: Easy
Translatable: IDK, I dont have any other programs to check in.



1. Choose the image you want the mask on, I would recommend a dark-ish one, but thats just me =P
 (Made By Myself)

2. Now, make a new layer by going Ctrl + Shift + N.


3. Now comes the fun part! If you want just a white "mask" as they're called, fill the layer with white or another color if you like by going to Edit > Fill or Shift + F5. Select "color" and choose your color. For this case, im choosing white. Hit OK.


4. Now, your icon should have two layers, the image layer and the layer with your color in it. So, now you go to the Custom Shape tool in the tool pallette to your left and select a shape for your mask:
 

5. Almost done now! Click on your image layer with the white or your own color in it, and drag your mouse until your shape is the way you want it. Undo by going Ctrl + Z. Once your shape is satisfactory, go to your layer pallette (the place with your two layers) and click "Paths" just above where the layers are.
 

6. Right-click on "Work Path" and click "Make Selection". Make sure that the "feather radius" is set to zero, but it should be default. This should be your result thus far:


7. Now, see how my heart shape selection is off to the side? I wanna fix that, so I go to the selection tool in the tool pallette to your left and hit the left arrow key on my keyboard to the left a little until I'm happy. Or, you can just click and drag your shape selection. Now, hit Ctrl + X or Delete on your keyboard to empty the space inside the shape, thus making the mask :D
 <-- This should be what your icon looks like now, still with two layers.

8. To finish, you do Ctrl + E to "merge" the two layers into one, save it, and your done! However, if you want to do Option #2 with the texture mask, see below.

---

1A. Do steps 1 and 2 shown above ;D

2B. Open up the texture you want to make a mask out of. You should have two images open now, one of them with your two layers on it.


3C. Go to your texture image, and Copy the texture by going Ctrl + A, then Ctrl + C. Go back to your other image now :]

4D. Paste the texture by making sure the blank layer #2 is selected, and hitting Ctrl + V. You should have this now:


5E. Lastly, Go to your custom shape tool, make your shape, make it into a selection, and delete the inside of the selection as shown in the above steps #4 and up. Remember to save!

I hope this helped ^^ Sorry if i didnt describe it well, it's hard to remember some people are just starting out with Photoshop ^^
Other examples using this tutorial:
  
(Note that i threw those together last minute, the possibilities are endless with this type of thing)>