Mask digital images in photoshop

In this tutorial I am using our digital stamps Christmas Street and Caroling Kittens.

Start by opening your two images.















Select the Magic Wand Tool (W) and set Tolerance to 30 and check Anti-alias and Contiguous. Click anywhere on the area that is surrounding the cats to select it. Now we want to inverse our selection, so we have the cats selected. To do so, go to the menu Select > Inverse (Shift+Ctrl+I). To copy the cats so we can paste them into our scenery go to menu Edit > Copy (Ctrl+C). Now select your scenery and go to menu Edit > Paste (Ctrl+V).












Your image should now look something like this. To make the cats the size we want go to the menu Edit > Free Transform (Ctrl+T). The bounding box will appear and you can re-size the cats by clicking the corner of the bounding box and drag it towards the middle. To ensure the image keeps the right proportions, hold Shift while you scale the image. To move it into location, just click the cats and drag them around. When you are done re-sizing and moving the cats, hit Enter.




















My image now looks like this. Now use the Zoom Tool (Z) to zoom in on your cats.

























In the bottom right, select your Background layer. Then click "Create a new layer", the one I have circled. In this new layer we are now going to colour in the parts of the cats that are still transparent. Choose the Brush Tool (B). Right click in the image to select a good size brush, and make sure that the hardness is 100%. Select your foreground colour to be white. Start colouring behind the cats. To make it easier to see where to colour you can hide the background. Just click the Eye next to the background layer (same layer as I have circled in the picture above.)











I started with a brush size of 60, then I went to 30 to do the details. It is not the end of the world if you colour outside the lines, but you can always use the Erase tool (E) to remove it. If you are zoomed in like I am in the picture above, you can easily move around your picture by holding Spacebar and drag your image. When you are done, zoom out by selecting the Zoom tool (Z) and holding Alt while clicking your image. Now click the Eye next to the Scenery layer to make it re-appear. It should look something like this now:















If you feel like it, you can add more white around the cats, to make them stand our more. If you want to move them now that you can see your result better, you have to chose both your layers; the one with the cats and the one with the. Select Layer1, then hold Ctrl while you click Layer2 to select both. Now you can move your image around.