This is the foundation of creativity within After Effects, but we now have our text and our mask, what can we actually do with it? 3.
![after effects drop shadow inside mask after effects drop shadow inside mask](https://cdn.educba.com/academy/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/set-keyframe-1024x528.png)
The text is still there, it hasn’t moved at all, the mask just hides parts of it as it moves around. Here is what happens if we drag the mask off the text to illustrate how this works. Inverted works in reverse, everything is visible but what is inside the mask. It is important to note that unless the ‘inverted’ box is ticked next to the mask component of the timeline, the mask hides everything but what is contained within the mask itself. There are many instances you will want to do this, but for this project we are looking at masking specifically, and so we ensure our text layer ‘Mask’ is highlighted, select the rectangle shape tool, and draw a mask around the text, which results in what we see in this screenshot. Using the shape tool will create a mask ONLY if the layer you wish to mask is selected in the timeline, if nothing is selected, the tool will create a shape layer. You can also cycle through the shapes by using the Q shortcut.
![after effects drop shadow inside mask after effects drop shadow inside mask](http://s3.amazonaws.com/pbblogassets/uploads/2014/03/Dropshadow-tutorial007.jpg)
It is important to understand how the shape tool works for effective masking, the tool is dual purpose and as such it is important to follow the correct steps to get the effect you want.įirst off, the tool itself is on the top menu, or shortcut ‘Q’, the drop down menu allows you to choose from a variety of shapes as we can see here. This is purely to illustrate the technique, you can use a mask on any type of layer you wish in your projects, as we will discuss later on. To get started we first create a new composition, I created a small 320x240 resolution composition for this purpose, and added a text layer that simply contains a single word ‘mask’ in yellow. In the following part, we will show you how to mask in After Effects. You can only do this on one layer at a time, so I’ll turn off the right side of the image to make things easier to see.Creating and using masks is a fundamental aspect of getting the best from After Effects, here we will look at the process for creating masks from the shape menu, which is the most straightforward way to implement a mask. Which means I need a way to tell Photoshop that my layer masks should hide both the contents and the layer effects.Īnd we can do that using an option called Layer Mask Hides Effects. I need the two strokes in the middle to disappear. Sometimes hiding a layer’s contents and just reshaping the layer effects is what you want, which is why it’s the default behavior in Photoshop.īut in this case, it’s not what I want. But when I added a mask to hide one side of the image, the stroke simply reshaped itself around the other side.ĭownload this tutorial as a print-ready PDF! How to mask layer effects in Photoshop That’s why my stroke initially surrounded the entire image. Instead of hiding the layer effects, Photoshop reshapes the effects to fit the content that’s not hidden by the mask. What’s happening is that by default, a layer mask hides the layer contents but it does not hide any layer effects that are applied to the layer. So what’s going on here, and how do we fix it? How do I get rid of the two strokes in the middle of the image? How layer effects and layer masks interact in Photoshop And it’s the stroke, not the image itself, that will be our main focus. The border was created using a stroke, which is one of Photoshop’s layer effects. Notice the white border around the main image.
![after effects drop shadow inside mask after effects drop shadow inside mask](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WRBrTJ2xCQU/hqdefault.jpg)
Behind it is a wood texture image that I’m using simply as a background. In this document, I have a photo of a couple sitting on a park bench, which is the main image I’ll working with. You can get the latest Photoshop version here. I’m using Photoshop 2023 but this applies to any recent version. In this tutorial, I show you some examples of problems you can run into when combining layer effects with a mask, along with the tricks you need to know to get your effects and masks working seamlessly together. And the reason is because of the way layer masks and layer effects interact, which is different from how masks work with a layer’s normal contents. Problem is, they don’t always work as expected when used together on the same layer. Layer effects and layer masks are two of Photoshop’s most powerful and creative features.