Some help - Gradient and layer masks

Rabbi Satan

Hello there - I am quite new to photoshop, and I have been reading tutourials and training videos all over the web to better understand and utilizing photoshop, its quite fun!

One of these training videos came from www.totaltraining.com - The videos are quite good, and they're very informative, and I am currently able to do some basic photoshopping. In the 2nd disc, in lesson 5, the author (Deke McClelland) is basically talking about layers. He was able to make a circle/elipse shape with a black to white gradient from the edge to the center, and since this was done in a layer mask, the original layer then had some transparent areas in it (The black areas in the layer mask then making the areas in the original layer transparent).

I tried to replicate this, and the closest thing I can come to is to use the Eliptical Marquee tool and use a radial gradient from the gradient tool. Its alright, but it doesn't really get the effect that I want to achieve. I've tried adjustment layers and layer styles, and whilst I can get the effects that I want (Inner Glow using black colours with layer styles, Gradient map with adjustment layers), it ultimately is not a layer mask and hence forth does not make the original layer transparent.

I've been stuck on this for quite a while - any help would be awesome - Thanks!

lasa · Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:12 pm Post subject:

See if this helps?

lasa · Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:16 pm Post subject:

Or this...

Good luck,
Lasa

Rabbi Satan · Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:26 pm Post subject:

Thanks for taking the time to reply lasa - much appreciated. Whilst I understand what you showed in those 2 pictures, the effect that I'm trying to replicate is different from that, I'll attach two jpgs that I print-screened from the video.

Thanks once again

lasa · Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:21 pm Post subject:

Sorry misunderstood you... Whats the end product look like because I see a layer above the shown ones..? Can you show the top layer thumbnails?
Lasa

Rabbi Satan · Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:28 pm Post subject:

Ok, here's the end product and the rest of the thumbnails:

But yeah, I'm trying to replicate the effects shown in images 1 and 2 - the closest I came to it was using an elipse marquee tool, and using the gradient tool - but I can guess from the video that the author didn't use the gradient tool, and used another method to get a nice gradient.

swanseamale47 · Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:04 am Post subject:

They are using a different gradient, theres a few options here (see pic) I'm guessing yhey are osing one of the circular ones. Wayne

Rabbi Satan · Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:33 am Post subject:

I tried the methods and the radial/circular gradients as you've suggested before, swan. As I said in the original post, this method was the closest that I was able to replicate the effect. But it still doesn't quite look like what the author in the video did.

Anyway, the picture here'll show you what I mean:

The images on the left are how the layer looks like with the masks applied to it - the images on the right are the actual layer masks. As you can see with the two on the right, the author's (The bottom right one) gradient is different from mine (The top right) - with mine, the gradients are even and spread out, whereas with the author's its not.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I appreciate all the help

swanseamale47 · Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 7:15 am Post subject:

If you click in the gradiet box you can modify the gradiet itself, have you tried that? Wayne

Rabbi Satan · Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 7:35 am Post subject:

Hhhmm, I tried what you said before, but then just now it dawned on me that I can move the slider bars in the gradient options window - but I kind of screwed up the loading/saving of the gradient templates.

But before I did that, I manage to achieve the effect I think I was looking for, I'll post back when I get it done, but I think this is the way the author in the video did it - Thanks A LOT swan

Thank you very much

Edit: Yup, ok, I finally got it working, thanks very much to swan and lasa for their help

The problem always seems insurmountable, but in the end t turns out that the solutions are quite trivial and clarifying.

Anyhow, I can't reproduce the exact effect seen in the video yet, but I've been able to produce something very similar.

Thanks once again

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