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Masking tricks in Image Blender

Image Blender is my go to app for blending and masking but I was getting frustrated using the brush tool to mask a straight line, then it dawned on me that I could use a solid black or white image to “knock out” the part I wanted to be transparent (or in this case to be opaque). Once I blended down the solid black or white I could bring the image back in and use the blending modes to get the transparency.

The screenshots above show this process. The original photo was the edge of a window frame. I overlaid a blank white image at four different angles. I then flipped it and blended it over the mountain photo. Tip: Swipe to the right to move and rotate the image and then from the main screen tap and hold to flatten down, switch images or copy. I did the final color adjustments in picfx, another go to app for me. If you have any other Blender tricks post them below!

Posted by: Seth Hardie
Instagram: @hallwood

7 Comments Leave A Comment

1

mg33 says:

September 26, 2012 at 8:40 am

Seth,

I wonder if you have the same thoughts I do with Image Blender: really wish it had a way to precisely rotate or position masking layers that didn’t involve moving them with your finger. I’ll often feel I have something positioned just right, then when you let off the screen the positioning changes. I keep quite a few such knockout images in my phone – black/white circles, triangles, etc.

You’ll laugh at this: It took me a while to ever use the brush tool in the mask mode, and if I’d messed something up with the erase tool, I thought that Cancel was my only option to back out of a mistake. Imagine the relief when I discovered what the draw tool actually does… :D
@mg33chicago

2

Chris Hahn says:

September 26, 2012 at 12:11 pm

I find masking with a stylus more precise. Question: What do you use to do your mirroring? There aren’t any apps (that I could find) that shoot mirroring in realtime, except for one and it saved the images at a really, really low resolution. I’ve been using Pro Snap, because it comes the closest to letting you check out your mirrored shot before moving on to your next process.

I like being able to use what’s onhand, but I’ve been contemplating building some primatives and shapes, uploading them to dropbox, and having access to those to layer with Blender.

3

Nthn says:

September 26, 2012 at 12:53 pm

Thanks for this post. It pushed me over the edge to finally pick up Blender. What a new world this opens up in terms of creativity and depth. I tend to use Diptic for rotation and mirroring. It is not live but it works well. I also enjoy aligning things by hand and it does give it a little more analog human feel. Keep rocking the grams @hallwood.

4

Hallwood says:

September 27, 2012 at 9:13 pm

@mg33 I know what you mean about precise alignment. When you lift your finger off it often moves just slightly. There’s a bunch of great almost hidden gems in blender. Did you know you can resize the brush as well? Tap and hold the brush icon.

@chris I agree I prefer a stylus for masking. I use picture show or diptic for mirroring.

@nthn nice. Good to hear. Have fun eh!

6

Spinx Inc says:

October 15, 2012 at 3:09 am

This is really awesome. Actually I have never tried blending and masking but I think I should go ahead and give it a try. This trick will really help me a lot. By the way, I really appreciate your sharing information on the application ‘Image Blender’.