I’m trying out a method of shading that involves adjusting the opacity of two (or more) transparency masks on a single flat shading color layer, but upon trying to adjust the opacity of a transparency mask, I found out that there is no option for that. Is there a way to adjust the opacity of a transparency mask, or if not, are there any alternatives for transparency masks that I could potentially use?
Isn’t transparency controlled by painting with grey instead of black or white?
PS - Welcome to the forum!
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A transparency mask doesn’t have an alpha channel so you can’t reduce its opacity.
As @sooz says, you use a transparency mask by painting greyscale on it to affect the transparency of its parent layer.
Two or more transparency masks on a parent layer are effectively multipied together.
There are discussions about using the layer opacity slider to control the amount of ‘effect’ of transparency and filter masks but that’s up for development discussion and is a separate topic.
If you can show some kind of diagram and description of what you’re trying to do and the expected results, someone may be able to suggest a different method of achieving your aims.
I (partially) control the opacity of the mask with two methods:
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Applying gradient with low opacity: 50% - 38% - 25%
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Applying airbrush with same settings.
I’m currently trying to achieve an effect like this: https://twitter.com/Rno71/status/1394390108829270017
I want to be able to control the light from two different light sources by erasing shadow instead of adding light.
Yes, but I wanted to be able to control the opacity in an easier way then manually changing the color (since you can’t use filter adjustments on transparency layers).
Also, thank you for the welcome!
I would approach it in a different way - not because my way is better, it’s just my habit and I like that it is non-destructive.
The layer that needs highlights or shading, I’d put that in a group, add a new layer above that one but still inside the group, and to this new layer I would apply alpha inheritance (that is the icon that looks like the letter “a” on each layer in the layers docker). I would then apply shadow or highlights using a soft airbrush with reduced opacity.
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That’s not exactly the effect I want, but I’ll definitely look into the use of alpha inheritance in the future. Thank you!
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