In Photoshop, we tried destructive and non-destructive editing on a photo of a cityscape.
Destructive Editing
Destructive editing is when you remove the pixels from the file, meaning that they cannot be restored after this. It can be used for a quicker process and can be precise but doesn’t allow much flexibility for editing and so provides the danger of losing work.
In this case, I selected the sky and deleted it to put a layer with a different sky underneath. This means that the information of the original sky has been removed to have the layer underneath visible.
Non-Destructive Editing
Non-destructive editing is when you don’t remove the pixels, but use things like masks to remove the selection without deleting the pixels. This can be used for more precise editing as you aren’t removing information allowing for more flexible editing, however, making masks precisely can be time-consuming if the selection you are making is complex.
In this case, I selected the sky and created a mask. I did this in detail by going into the ‘make clipping mask’ option in the options bar, changing the selection view to red, reducing the brush size and zooming in to get a higher quality selection.
The mask is represented by the black and white image shown on the layer as photoshop reads the image as having those two components.
To remove the white selection of the mask, I reselected it and used the brush tool in black, the inverse of the selection shown, to remove it. This then allows me to put in a sky on another layer underneath without having to completely delete the original sky of the photo.
I used the quick selection tool (shortcut W) to make the masks and destructively removed the sky rather than the lasso tools because it allowed me to make selections very quickly but also to be precise by changing the brush size and zooming in. The magic wand tool is also under the quick selection tool drop down.
Aliasing when making selections is when jagged edges appear when the resolution is too low or when the selection is too roughly done. The anti-aliasing setting ensures that these jagged edges are smoothed down for a clean image.
Levels
After looking at the basics of making a clipping mask, I then used this to modify part of the image without deleting anything. This was done by making a mask, selecting the sky and using the ‘levels’ editing option under the ‘create new fill or adjustment layer’ dropdown.
This allowed me to change the colour of the sky as well as the mid-tones, brightest tones and contrast using the black, grey and white sliders in the properties panel. The black slider is responsible for changing the black information, the grey slider is responsible for greys and shadows and the white slider is responsible for the white information.
Thanks for reading ~
Jasmine Cooper 