Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0 Classroom in a Book®

Saving a selection as a mask

Now you’ll save the egret selection as an alpha channel mask. Your time-consuming work won’t be lost, and you can use the selection again later.

Quick masks are temporary. They disappear when you deselect. However, any selection can be saved as a mask in an alpha channel. Think of alpha channels as storage areas for information. When you save a selection as a mask, a new alpha channel is created in the Channels palette. (An image can contain up to 24 channels, including all color and alpha channels.) You can use these masks again in the same image or in a different image.

Note

If you save and close your file while in Quick Mask mode, the quick mask will show in its own channel the next time you open your file. However, ...