One comment about my layer masks completely changed my workflow

I was at a small meetup in Austin last spring and someone looked at my screen for like 2 seconds and said 'you're painting on the layer, not the mask'. I had been doing digital art for 2 years and never realized I was just painting directly on the image instead of the mask layer. Switching to proper masking made my edges look so much cleaner and now I can go back and fix things without ruining the whole piece. Has anyone else had a tiny tip from a stranger completely rearrange how you work?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessawebb8d ago

Have you tried using black and white brushes on the mask to control transparency? It's like having an undo button for any part of your layers.

michaelcoleman8d ago

Oh man, that's exactly the kind of tip that changes everything! Once you get used to working on the mask instead of the layer, you realize how much freedom you actually have to edit stuff later without messing up what's underneath.