Make sure the layer you wish to mask is selected. Simply tap a layer thumbnail from the taskbar to select a layer.
- Photoshop User Guide
- Introduction to Photoshop
- Photoshop and other Adobe products and services
- Photoshop on the iPad (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop on the iPad | Common questions
- Get to know the workspace
- System requirements | Photoshop on the iPad
- Create, open, and export documents
- Add photos
- Work with layers
- Draw and paint with brushes
- Make selections and add masks
- Retouch your composites
- Work with adjustment layers
- Adjust the tonality of your composite with Curves
- Apply transform operations
- Crop and rotate your composites
- Rotate, pan, zoom, and reset the canvas
- Work with Type layers
- Work with Photoshop and Lightroom
- Get missing fonts in Photoshop on the iPad
- Japanese Text in Photoshop on the iPad
- Manage app settings
- Touch shortcuts and gestures
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Edit your image size
- Livestream as you create in Photoshop on the iPad
- Correct imperfections with the Healing Brush
- Create brushes in Capture and use them in Photoshop on the iPad
- Work with Camera Raw files
- Create and work with Smart Objects
- Adjust exposure in your images with Dodge and Burn
- Auto adjustment commands in Photoshop on the iPad
- Smudge areas in your images with Photoshop on the iPad
- Saturate or desaturate your images using Sponge tool
- Content aware fill for iPad
- Photoshop on the web (not available in mainland China)
- Common questions
- System requirements
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Supported file types
- Introduction to the workspace
- Open and work with cloud documents
- Generative AI features
- Basic concepts of editing
- Quick Actions
- Work with layers
- Retouch images and remove imperfections
- Make quick selections
- Image improvements with Adjustment Layers
- Move, transform, and crop images
- Draw and paint
- Work with Type layers
- Work with anyone on the web
- Manage app settings
- Generate Image
- Generate Background
- Reference Image
- Photoshop (beta) (not available in mainland China)
- Generative AI (not available in mainland China)
- Content authenticity (not available in mainland China)
- Cloud documents (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop cloud documents | Common questions
- Photoshop cloud documents | Workflow questions
- Manage and work with cloud documents in Photoshop
- Upgrade cloud storage for Photoshop
- Unable to create or save a cloud document
- Solve Photoshop cloud document errors
- Collect cloud document sync logs
- Invite others to edit your cloud documents
- Share files and comment in-app
- Workspace
- Workspace basics
- Preferences
- Learn faster with the Photoshop Discover Panel
- Create documents
- Place files
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Customize keyboard shortcuts
- Tool galleries
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- Use tools
- Presets
- Grid and guides
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- Use the Touch Bar with Photoshop
- Touch capabilities and customizable workspaces
- Technology previews
- Metadata and notes
- Touch capabilities and customizable workspaces
- Place Photoshop images in other applications
- Rulers
- Show or hide non-printing Extras
- Specify columns for an image
- Undo and history
- Panels and menus
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- Position with the Ruler tool
- Web, screen, and app design
- Image and color basics
- How to resize images
- Work with raster and vector images
- Image size and resolution
- Acquire images from cameras and scanners
- Create, open, and import images
- View images
- Invalid JPEG Marker error | Opening images
- Viewing multiple images
- Customize color pickers and swatches
- High dynamic range images
- Match colors in your image
- Convert between color modes
- Color modes
- Erase parts of an image
- Blending modes
- Choose colors
- Customize indexed color tables
- Image information
- Distort filters are unavailable
- About color
- Color and monochrome adjustments using channels
- Choose colors in the Color and Swatches panels
- Sample
- Color mode or Image mode
- Color cast
- Add a conditional mode change to an action
- Add swatches from HTML CSS and SVG
- Bit depth and preferences
- Layers
- Layer basics
- Nondestructive editing
- Create and manage layers and groups
- Select, group, and link layers
- Place images into frames
- Layer opacity and blending
- Mask layers
- Apply Smart Filters
- Layer comps
- Move, stack, and lock layers
- Mask layers with vector masks
- Manage layers and groups
- Layer effects and styles
- Edit layer masks
- Extract assets
- Reveal layers with clipping masks
- Generate image assets from layers
- Work with Smart Objects
- Blending modes
- Combine multiple images into a group portrait
- Combine images with Auto-Blend Layers
- Align and distribute layers
- Copy CSS from layers
- Load selections from a layer or layer mask's boundaries
- Knockout to reveal content from other layers
- Selections
- Get started with selections
- Make selections in your composite
- Select and Mask workspace
- Select with the marquee tools
- Select with the lasso tools
- Adjust pixel selections
- Move, copy, and delete selected pixels
- Create a temporary quick mask
- Select a color range in an image
- Convert between paths and selection borders
- Channel basics
- Save selections and alpha channel masks
- Select the image areas in focus
- Duplicate, split, and merge channels
- Channel calculations
- Get started with selections
- Image adjustments
- Replace object colors
- Perspective warp
- Reduce camera shake blurring
- Healing brush examples
- Export color lookup tables
- Adjust image sharpness and blur
- Understand color adjustments
- Apply a Brightness/Contrast adjustment
- Adjust shadow and highlight detail
- Levels adjustment
- Adjust hue and saturation
- Adjust vibrance
- Adjust color saturation in image areas
- Make quick tonal adjustments
- Apply special color effects to images
- Enhance your image with color balance adjustments
- High dynamic range images
- View histograms and pixel values
- Match colors in your image
- Crop and straighten photos
- Convert a color image to black and white
- Adjustment and fill layers
- Curves adjustment
- Blending modes
- Target images for press
- Adjust color and tone with Levels and Curves eyedroppers
- Adjust HDR exposure and toning
- Dodge or burn image areas
- Make selective color adjustments
- Adobe Camera Raw
- Camera Raw system requirements
- What's new in Camera Raw
- Introduction to Camera Raw
- Create panoramas
- Supported lenses
- Vignette, grain, and dehaze effects in Camera Raw
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Automatic perspective correction in Camera Raw
- Radial Filter in Camera Raw
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- Open, process, and save images in Camera Raw
- Repair images with the Enhanced Spot Removal tool in Camera Raw
- Rotate, crop, and adjust images
- Adjust color rendering in Camera Raw
- Process versions in Camera Raw
- Make local adjustments in Camera Raw
- Image repair and restoration
- Image enhancement and transformation
- Drawing and painting
- Paint symmetrical patterns
- Draw rectangles and modify stroke options
- About drawing
- Draw and edit shapes
- Painting tools
- Create and modify brushes
- Blending modes
- Add color to paths
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- Generate a pattern using the Pattern Maker
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- Gradient
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- Text
- Filters and effects
- Saving and exporting
- Color Management
- Web, screen, and app design
- Video and animation
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- Troubleshooting
Supercharge your Photoshop workflows with selection and masking on your iPad.
Try the mobile app
Try out the latest features and enhancements in the Photoshop app on the iPad for general availability.
Making selections and adding masks are two powerful ways to edit selective areas and add effects to your composites.
A selection isolates one or more parts of your image. By selecting specific areas, you can edit, and apply effects and filters to portions of your document while leaving the deselected areas untouched.
Double-tap or long-press the active selection tool from the toolbar to bring up more Selection tools — Lasso, Object Select, Quick selection, Marquee rectangle, Marquee ellipse, and Magic wand. Lasso is the default selection tool.
Actions allow you to quickly achieve an outcome such as selecting a subject.
Note:
- Use Object Select to select one of the objects or part of an object in your composite having multiple objects.
- Use Select Subject to identify and select all the main subjects in your composite.
When you tap a selection tool, the associated tool options appear. From the tool options, you can choose whether to add to your selection, subtract from your selection, or select the areas that intersect with the current selection.
When you make a selection, the active selection properties appear at the bottom of the workspace. It gives you the option to Deselect, Mask, Erase, Invert, Refine edge, Transform the selection, or Select similar.
Select with the Lasso tool
The Lasso tool is the default selection tool in Photoshop on the iPad and is useful for drawing freeform segments of a selection. Tap from the toolbar to select the Lasso tool and choose from the tool options that appear. Simply draw a freehand selection on your document to proceed.
- Active selection: The active selection in your image layer.
- Add to selection: Next selections will be added to the current selection.
- Subtract from selection: Next selections will be subtracted from the current selection.
- Select the areas that intersect with the current selection: Select the intersection of the current and next selection.
- Lasso settings: Feather - Select the number of pixels to feather the edges of a selection.
Select with the Object Select tool
To select an object using Object Select, do the following:
- Tap or long-press Lasso (default) or any other active selection tool from the toolbar to bring up more selection tools.
- Tap Object Select ().
- (Optional) From the associated tool options that open, you can choose to create a new selection, add to your selection, subtract from your selection, select the areas that intersect with the current selection, or tap to open Object Selection settings.
- (Optional) Under Object Selection settings, you can choose a selection Style — Rectangle (default) or Lasso. You can also choose to enable — Sample all layers, Enhance edge, and Object subtract.
- Tap and draw a rectangular area or a rough lasso, based on the chosen selection style in step 4, around the object you want to select on your composite. Photoshop automatically selects the object inside the defined region.
Select with the Quick selection tool
The Quick selection tool allows you to quickly paint a selection using an adjustable round brush. As you drag, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows defined edges in your document.
Tap or long press the Lasso tool from the toolbar to reveal the Quick selection tool . As you tap the Quick selection tool, choose from the tool options that appear:
- Add to selection: Next selections will be added to the current selection.
- Subtract from selection: Next selections will be subtracted from the current selection.
- Brush size: Determines the pixel size of the quick selection tool.
- Hardness: The hardness setting controls the size of the brush’s hard center.
- Quick Select settings: Enable/disable Use pressure for size.
Select with the Marquee tools
The marquee tools allow you to select rectangles and ellipses. To make a marquee selection, choose one of the marquee tools and simply drag over the area you wish to select. If you have a physical keyboard connected to your iPad, you can also press M (Shift) to select the Marquee tools.
Use the Elliptical marquee tool () for makins an elliptical selection.
Use the Rectangular marquee tool () for making a rectangular selection.
- New selection: Creates a new selection for you.
- Add to selection: Next selections will be added to the current selection.
- Subtract from selection: Next selections will be subtracted from the current selection.
- Select the areas that intersect with the current selection: Select the intersection of current and next selection.
- Lasso settings :
Feather - Select the number of pixels to feather the edges of a selection.
Style - Select a style from the drop-down list.
Magic Wand is useful for quickly extracting objects from a flat background, quickly selecting an irregularly shaped area, or selecting a distinctly colored element.
To make a selection using the Magic Wand tool, do the following:
- Double-tap or long-press Lasso (default selection tool) from the toolbar to reveal all selection tools and actions. Select the Magic Wand tool.
- From the tool options that appear, specify a selection option: New Selection, Add to Selection, Subtract from Selection, Intersect with Selection, Brush size, and more Magic wand settings.
- In the Magic wand settings menu, you can set a sample size for your selection. You can also choose to enable or disable the following — Anti-alias, Contiguous, and Sample all layers options. Disable Contiguous if you want to select nonadjacent areas of similar color.
- Tap the color in your image that you want to select to make your selection.
- Once your selection is done, you can see the Active selection properties bar appear at the bottom of your workspace. You can further choose to — Deselect, Mask, Erase, Invert, Refine Edge, Transform selection, or Select similar.
Powered by Adobe Sensei, Select Subject () is trained to identify a variety of objects in an image—people, animals, vehicles, toys, and more. Select Subject uses the power of Sensei to identify the most prominent subjects in your document and make a selection — all with a single tap.
The Select Subject tool saves time by quickly isolating the main subjects from the background. It gives the best results when your composition is less cluttered, free of reflective surfaces, has a good amount of contrast between the main subject and the background, and has sharp edges around the main subject. You can further refine the automatic selection using other selection tools to fine-tune your selection.
To make a selection using the Select Subject tool, do the following:
1. Double-tap or long-press Lasso (default) or other active selection tools from the toolbar to bring up more selection tool options.
2. Tap Select Subject () under Actions. It automatically selects the main subject in the active layer of your document.
With the March 2022 release of Photoshop on the iPad, we have enhanced the Select subject action with improved AI technology that will help you get precise selections when working with portrait images on your iPad.
With the April 2022 release of Photoshop on the iPad, you can now easily remove the background from your photos and have them ready to use in your composites at the tap of a button.
Tap the Remove background quick action button in the Selection tools panel to remove the background from your image. Alternatively, you can access this quick action button from the Layer properties panel as well.
Active selection properties
Once you make a selection, you can see active selection properties at the bottom of the workspace:
- Deselect: Deselects the current selection.
- Mask: Turns the current selection into a mask for the layer.
- Erase: Allows you to erase the selected area.
- Invert: Inverts the selection so that the deselected area becomes the selection.
- Refine edge: Refines your complex selections.
- Transform selection: Allows you to transform the selection.
- Select similar: Adds pixels to the selection that are similar to the ones already selected.
Refine edge
Use Refine edge () to further fine-tune the boundary of your selection. Refine edge helps make complex selections such as strands of hair, fur, or other tricky edges of your subject easier.
To use Refine edge, do the following:
- Make a selection with any of the selection tools in Photoshop on your iPad.
- In the active selection properties bar that appears at the bottom of the workspace, tap More () and select Refine edge.
- In the Refine edge mode that opens, from the tool properties bar, you can adjust the Refine edge brush size, add to selection (), subtract from the selection (), or tap to open Refine edge brush settings. Under the Refine edge brush settings, you can modify the Hardness, Spacing, Angle, and Roundness sliders per your requirement.
- In the Refine edge mode, the properties panel on the right lets you select:
- View mode: This setting allows you to choose a view mode depending on the complexity and colors in your composite — Marching ants, Overlay, On black, On white, and Black and white.
- Edge detection: Move the Edge detection radius slider toward the right to soften the edges and toward the left to have sharp selection edges. Enable Smart radius to keep the width of refinement dynamic around your selection boundary. This helps reduce the pixels with no data and makes your selection appear more natural.
- Global refinements:
- Adjust the Smooth slider to smoothen out the uneven edges of your selection.
- Adjust the Feather slider to blend your selection boundary with the background of your composite.
- Adjust the Contrast slider to add more clarity to your selection edges.
- Adjust the Shift Edge slider left to make your selection smaller and right to widen the selection. By default, the value is set to 0.
- Enable Invert to make your deselected area the new selection. - Output as: You can choose to output your refine edge selection as — Selection, Layer mask, New layer, and New layer with mask. Before you are ready to output your selection, you can enable Decontaminate colors and use the Amount slider to adjust and remove any color fringe present in your selection. This is helpful when your selection is made against a sharp color contrasting background.
- Tap the undo (
) icon to revert the last action performed. Tap redo ( ) to restore the undone action. - Tap Done to apply your Refine edge selection settings. Tap Cancel to exit the Refine edge mode.
More options on taskbar
- Cut: Allows you to cut a selection or layer
- Copy merged: Allows you to copy a merged selection or layer to be pasted over another layer.
Apply masks
You can use masks to hide portions of a layer and reveal portions of the layers below. Masks are nondestructive, which means you can go back and edit the masks again without losing the pixels they hide.
- A layer mask hides part of a layer from view.
- A clipping mask uses the contents of one layer to clip or hide the contents of one or more other layers from view.
Layer mask
You can create a layer mask to show parts of a layer and hide others by turning a selection into a layer mask, or by painting on the layer mask after creating it. In areas where the layer is masked or hidden, the layers below are visible. Masking layers is a valuable compositing technique for combining multiple documents into a single document or for removing unwanted objects from a composite.
Create a layer mask from a selection
-
-
Create a selection using one of the selection tools.
-
Tap the layer mask icon on the taskbar (
).
You can view the selected area while the rest of the layer gets masked.
From the compact layer view, you can swipe left and right on the layer thumbnail to switch the view from layer view to layer mask view. Both thumbnails are visible on the detailed layer view. To learn more about layer views, see Work with layers.
Create a layer mask and edit the mask with a brush
-
Make sure the layer you wish to mask is selected. Simply tap a layer thumbnail from the taskbar to select a layer.
-
Tap the layer mask (
) icon on the taskbar to create a mask. -
Tap the brush () icon.
-
Set up brush properties as desired. Choose black to fully mask where you paint. To learn more about brush properties, see Draw and paint with brushes.
-
Paint over the mask layer.
To learn more about layer masks, see Work with layers.
Clipping mask
A clipping mask allows you to use the content of one layer to mask the layers above it. To learn more about clipping masks, see Work with layers.