How do I make a mask to fit inside a frame?

[Jenny-O]

Does anyone know how or have a good tutorial of how to make a mask for a frame so you can clip your photo to it so that the photo will fit perfectly inside the frame? I especially want this for doodle frames that are usually not perfectly shaped. Any help is appreciated! Thank you!

[cherryberry]

Hi Jenny - this is what I do. I have Photoshop CS4.

First put your photo under your doodled frame layer and make sure it is lined up properly (ie the part that is inside the doodled frame is the part you want to keep).

Second, I make sure my doodled frame layer is selected and then I take my magic wand tool and click inside the frame so the marching ants are outlining the part of the frame where I'd like my picture to be.

Then, I select my photo layer and click the "add layer mask" button at the bottom of my layer panel. It looks like a square with a circle in the middle. This automatically keeps the part of the picture inside the marching ants and masks out the part that is outside the marching ants.

You can the deselect your selection and touch up any areas you want by using a soft brush on the mask that you just created. White shows more of the picture and black takes away.

Hope that was helpful.

[Jenny-O]

Tiki,

Thank you for the tutorial. I am still not getting it to work right. I am using CS4 also. When I select inside the frame with my magic wand, the doodle frame is selected and the area outside of the frame (I did try to inverse the selection, but that did not work either). What should my magic wand settings be? I understand the concept of doing this, but I cannot get just the inside of the frame selected.

UPDATE: I tried your technique with another frame and it worked beautifully! I can't figure out why it won't work on the other frame I was trying. I will keep messing with it though!

[kristenrice]

That's a great explanation, Tiki!

Jenny, it is probably not working right with all frames because sometimes the doodled frames have a tiny opening somewhere where the doodle frame was not closed all the way...does that make sense? So, it's not a perfect closed square, or rectangle (or whatever the shape), it's probably got a little opening somewhere, so when you use the magic wand, it just selects the entire area (both inside and outside the doodle).

Another method is to use the Pen Tool (which will create a Path), and just click all along the doodle (like where you want the photo to fit), and then when you are finished, you can right click on the line that you created with the pen tool, and select "Make Selection", and then choose the "Add layer mask" on the layers palette.

I hope that makes sense! :)