Inverting layer masks? CS5

[bazooka]

The mask is just a grayscale image, you can do anything to it. Filters, levels, brushes, erase... anything you can do to a normal grayscale image. You just select the mask by clicking on it, then apply whatever modification you want. To make it easy to see what you are doing, hold Alt while clicking on the mask so you can see it instead of the image.

 

[Proteus617]

You cannot gaussian blur the mask, because the mask has no pixels, you can only gaussian blur the image.

Yes you can, and I just did. The content of a mask is identical to a greyscale image. Nothing but pixels with a 8 or 16 bit value. What you do to one you can do to the other. Blurring a mask or adjusting levels, threshold etc. can be a useful way to refine the mask when you are getting strange fringing effects or whatever on your image.

Great. How?

And please describe how you solved your initial issue .

PShop makes you jump through a few hoops to adjust a mask like the greyscale file it really is (GIMP does not do this). To uncouple the mask from the image, select only the mask in the Channels Palette. Make the mask active. Adjust the mask via Adjustments from the Image drop down or numerous other ways. The only thing that does not seem to work, is the Adjustments Palette. That acts upon the image (not the mask) no matter what is selected or made active.

Also, thanks for the help everyone. Lots of great information.

 

[Buckster]

To make it easy to see what you are doing, hold Alt while clicking on the mask so you can see it instead of the image.

Or, hold Alt+Shift while clicking on the mask to see it as a rubylith on top of the image.