WOW - MASKS!

OMG..If you have not yet tried or figured out masking, you are sooooo missing out on something absolutley awesome! I have for a long time tried to "understand" the whole masking concept, and today FINALLY a light bulb turned on. I am so excited and at the same time feel so goofy for not getting this before. I'm betting though there are others of you out there like me, who either just don't understand it or have never even tried to figure it out (if you even know what the heck I'm talking about now! lol).....

SO...basically, here's what it can do for you in photo editing:
Say for example you have a picture that is exposed differently - one half over and the other under. If you try to just adjust the lightening in the whole picture, to brighten the underexposed or darker areas, you're going to totally wash out the lighter area. BUT if you use a MASK you can brighten the dark portion while still leaving the bright section untouched! WOW! How wonderful is that? You can do this for any kind of adjustment your making...taking out a certain color, bluring only a portion of the picture (maybe skin, or background), etc...anything!

So, if you don't know or undertand how to do this...well, I'm by FAR not great at this yet, but I'll have to put a little "how to" together that I can share here. I'm so excited to finally understand this and I know how frustrating it was for me up till now when someone told me "just use a mask" lol! I'm sure these wonderful friends of mine had to be frustrated too with me when I just didn't get this. I know I'm capable and brighter than that, but I don't know..for some reason, it just did not click! It could be that I've long been using Photo Impact (which can really do just about every thing I've learned to do in PS except it does not do brushes in the same way) and maybe the way it handles layers and "presents" masking just didn't make it as clear to me. Who knows....I thank those wonderful friends who have long been trying to explain this to me, and I'm just thrilled to have finally figured this out.

So, when I've got an extra minute (do those really exist? lol) I'll upload a picture or two, with before and after and actually describe step by step how I did what I did and hopefully help someone else out there. Maybe I'll go back into PI too and see if I can do it there now too.

In other news...I'm quite pleased with my productivity lately. :-) I have 18 things on my to do list currently - I usually put this together Sunday night or Monday morning, and expect it will take me usually most of the week to get through it. Well, by last night 11 things were already crossed off, and this morning (ONLY WED NOW) already another 3. I only have 4 things left on the list, which I expect to make very good progess on again today. Though I do know of a new thing that needs to be added to the list, but it can easily be completed today. WOW! I just feel so releaved when I see my list getting crossed off...it gives me such a feeling of accomplishment and can greatly reduce stress for me! I must mention, my to do list almost NEVER includes anything related to house work, laundry, cooking, etc...I just don't put those things on my list often...they are more like the givens in a day for me. :-)

So..I think this has gotten long enough for now..I better go be productive on my list and see if I can't knock the rest of that out today! whooo hoooo.