The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay Photoshop for Devs series, this one’s a short-but-sweet intro to using layer masks in Photoshop. Layer masks are used to hide areas of a layer without deleting any of the layer’s colour information. I always use layer masks rather than the erase tool. You never know when you’re going to want those pixels back.

Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.

• Erasing non-destructively with layer masks
• Fine-tuning layer masks with tools like Blur
• Making a selection from your mask
• CAUTION: make sure you’re editing the mask and not the layer
• Moving or copying masks from one layer to another
• Using vector masks and combining them with pixel masks

Recorded, edited and uploaded with Screenflow.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.