need alpha mask tutorial....

[sam123]

hi all,


I have an image and I want some part of this image and it is difficult to use marquee tool for that selection. So I want to know about alpha masking. I heard it is for complex selection.Can anyone tell me a good tutorial. Reply soon its urgent.

Thanks

[WetWired]

An alpha mask really isn't designed for selection, but rather for changing the transparency of a layer. If you were to apply an alpha mask to the layer to only leave the parts you want, then select the whole layer, however, it would be kind of like using it for complex selection.

For most tools having this feature, you just enable editing on the alpha mask, then the luminicity of what you draw on it determines how opague that area of the main layer is: white is completely opague, black is completely transparent. For Photoshop, IIRC, there's a toolbar button to enable modifying the alpha mask. For Paint Shop Pro, you have to first create an alpha mask from the masks menu, then choose to edit it.