Placing an image over a certain section of the canvas?

[ethandale]

I learned this in a class last year, and I cannot for the life of me remember the term for it. For example, if I wanted to make a rock, with a rocklike texture, aside from hand painting it, an option would be to find a rocky "texture" online, paint a black blob in the shape of the rock on its own layer, and then I somehow could place that texture only onto the object, and move it around to where I wanted it.

What's the name of the technique? Could somebody explain a quick way to do this in photoshop?

[davescm · Accepted solution]

It sounds like you may have used a clipping mask to show an upper layer only where there were solid pixels on the lower layer.

Create a new layer

Paint your shape on that layer.

Add your texture to the layer above.

Alt-Click (Opt +Click on Mac) on the border between the two layers , in the layers panel. A small downward arrow will appear in the layers panel and the upper layer will now only be visible where you painted on the lower layer

Dave

[lambiloon]

yes that is called masking you can do it by doing atl click between 2 layers and above layer will apply over the below layers then do what you want on above layer.

thank you