Photoshop Question

[JeffBlack]

You have two options in Photoshop for masking an area using the paintbrush tool. One will let you highlight (mask) an area, then you have to "select" inverse to preform an action on that particular area. This is the default PS setting.

Somewhere, and I think its in properties, allows you to choose the setting to mask the actual area, an not have to select inverse to take action...

Probably not the best explantion but, does anyone know how to switch that???

Type a 'Q' to enter Quickmask mode.

There is an icon close to the bottom of the toolbar that looks like this:


Double click on the right hand of the two icons and you will get the following dialog box:



Change it to this:



Click OK and you are all set.

[StMarc]

That solution is both elegant and probably more permanent, but if you're only occasionally tripped up by this, just click on the little arrow above the foreground/background color swatches. This reverses foreground and background: in QuickMask mode, foreground and background are "mask" and "unmask." If you're "painting with mask," switching the colors gives you "paint with unmask," and vice versa. this can also be useful if you're doing very fiddly selection work and you get an overspray of one or the other. (And you don't want to hit Undo.) Just switch, grab a smaller brush from the brush palette if you need it, and fix the mistake.