Epson Photo Plus - PhotoPlus Color Photo Scanner User's Guide download pdf (Page 56)

44 Layers and Masks

Importing a depth map

Another way of incorporating a depth map is to create a suitable bitmap image

separately (or borrow one from somewhere else) and then paste it via the

Clipboard into an existing PhotoPlus depth map (depth map thumbnail

selected).

Using masks

Masking in a program like PhotoPlus is a bit more complicated than applying

masking tape to the screen! But fundamentally the concept is the same: you can

hide certain parts of an image—in this case by rendering them transparent,

hence invisible. To do that, you create a mask on a non-Background layer (the

Background layer doesn't support transparency).

By changing the grayscale values on the mask (using the paint tools and other

devices), you can impose corresponding changes in the opacity of the

underlying layer's pixels (values stored as the layer's alpha channel). For

example, by applying a gradient "blacking out" across the mask, you gradually

render the layer's underlying pixels transparent, and they disappear from the

image (see above).

Besides the creative possibilities, ranging from vignetting to multi-layer montage

to gradient-fill masking (see example above) and beyond, a great feature of

working on a mask is that it is "temporary". If you don't like the way things are

going, you can abandon your changes and start over without ever having

affected the actual pixels on the layer!

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Epson Photo Plus - PhotoPlus Color Photo Scanner User's Guide Page 56