Inside Photoshop® CS

Setting Selection and Mask Modes

Adobe Systems sometimes leaves me speechless because of the way things are named. For example, a Quick Mask, which is an overlay you paint on image areas to declare “I want this area selected,” can mark either a selected area or a masked area.

It really doesn't matter that Photoshop has tacked the word mask onto at least 15 things that can produce selections in addition to masking. Quick Mask can both protect the area you mask over from editing (in which case, it's truly a Quick Mask) or make areas you tint on top of the image available for editing (in which case, you are defining a selection and not a mask).

Let's perform a short series of steps to make sure that when you want a selection, you get a selection, ...