How to make a cutout of multiple layers

Thanks for all the great advice!!

Hi

I understand you just want the windows to cut through

If you have done this with shapes then you could do the following:

I started with two rectangles for buildings over a black fill layer and the windows were just black rectangle shapes copied and repositioned.

Method 1 - Use knockout :

Go to group Windows and right click. In blending options reduce the Fill to 0% and set knockout to Deep. This will cut through to the yellow background layer

Method 2 - Use Clipping

Put the required color on a layer above the "Windows" group. Alt click on the border and the layer will "clip" to the group below (i.e that group below acts as a mask). A small down arrow appears next to the layer to show it is clipped.

I hope those two methods help you

Dave

Just a variation on Martin's explanation.

1) starting with the original black and white building you just want to punch holes in the windows to reveal the background

2) Add a color overlay layer to provide the background color and set the blend mode of the upper (building) layer to 'Screen' This will cause the black elements of the graphic to disappear and reveal the background.

3) With the building layer selected, use the magic wand tool with a tolerance of '0' and 'Contiguous' checked to make a selection

4) Now select the layer mask on the color overlay layer and fill with black. In other words have black as your foreground color and press alt-backspace on the keyboard for a PC and option-backspace for a Mac. This will fill the selection and create a mask with just the blue color overlay revealed behind the windows.

Could you please post a screenshot with the pertinent Panels (Layers, Channels, Options Bar, …) visible?

Hi my friend,

If your building is just one layer, this means that your layer is made by both the black color and the white building, just use the Magic wand tool in order to select the black windows. Once you selected the windows, just press the delete or backspace key on your keyboard and you will have a hole, through which you can see the Background layer.

When using the Magic Wand tool, be sure to uncheck the "Contiguous" option in the upper option bar, otherwise you will select also the black background of the layer.

If you feel like to be more advanced, instead of deleting the black holes, just apply a layer mask, If you do not know what is that, no worries, you will get there once your Photoshop skills will advance.

Please let me know if u solved the problem,
Martin