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Flemgooz1
Known Participant
August 9, 2022
Question

Adding more than one vector mask on a bottom Layer

  • August 9, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 478 views

Hi, I have a bottom Layer that I have added a vector mask to from the Layers pallette.. Later I want to add more but I can't, as a second thumbnail. I finally did something similar by creating a clipping mask instead, but I want to know why I just can't add another vector mask.


Just a little expounding> I always use my original pencil sketch draft as the background. I save it as a Layer and then I lighten the opacity so as not to compete with the visibilty when I am tracing successive layers above.
Then, on the bottom Draft Layer, for better visibility, I like to hide those Objects that I have traced . And the Add Vector Mask on the bottom Layers pallette is the best, to hide but not delete that part or object on the draft.

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3 replies

Trevor.Dennis
Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
August 9, 2022

Nested Smart Objects. 

    Conrad_C
    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    August 9, 2022

    Nested Smart Objects is definitely another way to do it. I love Smart Objects, but they make editing more complex because it’s necessary to open a Smart Object in another window to edit the contents, changes made to a Smart Object can’t be seen in the parent document until the Smart Object is saved, and creating that nested object increases file sizes and possibly RAM requirements. So if all that’s needed is another mask, it’s typically better to start with a nested folder first.

    Chris 486
    Chris 486
    Community Expert
    August 9, 2022

    Hi Flemgooz1!

     

    Conrad C has what seems to be a great solution to adding additonal vector masks. 

     

    Just for clarification on my end. If your goal is to just hide that parts of the draft you are finished with, I'm not sure I understand what you would need a second mask for on the individual layer?

     

    Everyone has a different workflow- My take on this process would be to combine all your sketch layers to a single group and just add the mask to the group so you have a master mask to control the visibility of all your sketches at once.

     

    Maybe that will help, otherwise happy to try to troubleshoot further with more information.

     

     

    Conrad_C
    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    August 9, 2022

    Each layer seems to have a limit of one layer (pixel) mask and one vector mask. It’s possible for a layer to have one of each, but that’s it.

     

    When I want to apply more than one of the same mask type to a layer, I take advantage of the fact that a layer group can also have one of each kind of mask. I nest the layer in a group, and create a mask for that group, and now there are two masks that apply to that layer.

     

    You could look in the Ideas section of this community to see if anyone has already requested multiple masks of the same type on a layer. If not, you could submit a feature request there, where requests can be upvoted.

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