Comments on: Dear Adobe: Layer Masks

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:37:57 +0000

The one simple addition I would love to see in Photoshop is the ability to add bleed when setting up a document. It’s available on Illustrator and InDesign, and almost every project I work on has me adding 6mm, working out 3mm from each edge for guides, then a further 10mm for spacing….. life would be so much easier with this simple bit stck on.

By: BP Design Lab

BP Design Lab — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:06:58 +0000

Haha, leaky faucet. Maybe in CS5.

Oh, did you try to put a mask over it and fill it white? That might stop the leak!

By: Bastiaan

Bastiaan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:57:34 +0000

I used to do a lot of work in Shake, and that really showed me how powerful masking (or rather layering) can be. It gives you complete (and non-destructive) freedom to add, subtract or otherwise combine as many masks as you please, and in an intuitive way.

I would *love* a node based photoshop. Not gonna happen though…

By: Alan Languirand

Alan Languirand — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:29:55 +0000

This would be great! I like the “dear” adobe idea as well. If you tweet new posts directly to adobe (@adobe) their pr department will pick it up.

There’s a little hack/workaround for what you’ve described that involves using a smart object as a clipping mask. Others have already mentioned it. It does everything except capture the exclusion ability you’re looking for – but there’s a somewhat messy way to do that which involves making smart objects out of your image/smart object mask pairs, and clipping them with other smart objects.

It only actually gets complicated because you can’t expand the tree all at once like you can in illustrator. You can do this easily with Illustrator, but of course the masks are hard lined, and if you use a gradient mask in illustrator you’re right back to the hard to use “why is this an exception to the model I like?” thing.

Thanks for starting the conversation.

By: collin

collin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:48:14 +0000

I just want to beable to have longer film strips that i can edit. i do most of my masking in AE not PS since i am mostly a motion designer that comes from a print background. very interesting thought scott. i think the smart object idea someone said here might be a simple solution in the future.

By: Joe Clay

Joe Clay — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:21:34 +0000

I’d much rather drag layers around in Photoshop than unlink and relink in/outputs on nodes. It just doesn’t feel right for Photoshop.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:00:32 +0000

What about node based compositing? Which applies to everything, not just masks.

Surely this a much more flexible approach to the whole process. The presentation and methods of interaction could still be managed as per some previous suggestions, but really a powerful node based compositing work flow is is sorely missing in a modern graphics application.

By: Luca

Luca — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:12:50 +0000

oh well: have Adobe incorporate “Pre composition”.
For who don’t know PRE COMP are like gruping but more powerfoul and much editable.

By: Luca

Luca — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:08:06 +0000

Just use After effects!
…yes for stills images

By: westjef

westjef — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:06:33 +0000

I second this idea. And i hope it’s gonna work more like in your concept then like Smart Object.
I’m also quite happy you pointed the nested group limitations. There isn’t a single project where i don’t encounter this limitation. It’s the first thing i check in all new PS releases.