Tutorial Idea

abm234

abm234

Active member
Just within the last week or so I have noticed a whole ton of layouts with "cutouts" in them, for lack of a better description. I love how you can see the layer underneath whatever shape was cut out. I have no idea how to do this!

Would somebody mind telling me how?

If its more than just a short description maybe it would be a good tutorial idea? Maybe not since I think it looks like I'm the only one who doesn't know how to do it!
 
It's pretty simple. You basically select whatever shape you want (marching ants) and just hit delete on your BG layer.

You can get marching ants in a variety of ways:
1 - you can draw a square or circle with your marquee tool (M).
2 - you can draw a custom shape and then select it Ctrl+Click on the layer thumbnail. (Cmd+click on a Mac)
3 - you can Ctrl+click on the layer thumb nail for any element (journaling block, heart, flower, whatever)

Once you have those marching ants, you just make sure you're on the background layer and hit delete. The only problem with doing cutouts is that you can't "move" them once you've cut them. So, sometimes I create the shapes and move them around until I know I have them in the right place, and then I cut them out.

Hope that helps!
 
ltarbox said:
It's pretty simple. You basically select whatever shape you want (marching ants) and just hit delete on your BG layer.

You can get marching ants in a variety of ways:
1 - you can draw a square or circle with your marquee tool (M).
2 - you can draw a custom shape and then select it Ctrl+Click on the layer thumbnail. (Cmd+click on a Mac)
3 - you can Ctrl+click on the layer thumb nail for any element (journaling block, heart, flower, whatever)

Once you have those marching ants, you just make sure you're on the background layer and hit delete. The only problem with doing cutouts is that you can't "move" them once you've cut them. So, sometimes I create the shapes and move them around until I know I have them in the right place, and then I cut them out.

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

If you do your cut out shape as a clipping mask with an inner shadow instead of a drop shadow you can move it around. It's kind of an optical illusion.
 
Last edited:
I always use either a clipping mask or an inner shadow. But I use layer masks for everything since I like to change my mind a lot. :D
 
Okay - yes! I knew there was a way to do it and still move it around, but I hadn't figured it out yet. I use layer masks a ton too, so I'm surprised that I hadn't thought of that for cut-outs yet. Lol. Thanks girls!
 
Ok, so I tried this for the first time for the Pinterest Challenge and my cutouts seem to have no depth. I used an element to get the cut out shape. Do I put the shadow on the element before deleting the element?

mother-lover-ella-2012-LGFD-MintCC-3x-copy.jpg
 
So pretty Amy! I'm able to get the marching ants doing option #1 but have never been successful with the other two. My machine just makes a noise at me and I finally give up. I would love to make a shape ither than a circle!
 
Lindsay-I had to "rasterize" the background layer before it would let me delete the background layer. It took me a while to figure that out. If you right click on the layer that should be one of the options.

Erin-thanks so much. I don't think I had a shadow on my background layer at all. I'm going to give that a try!
 
Let me know if that doesn't work Amy! It should unless you did it like a clipping mask :) Then you'll want a inner shadow. So many different ways to do things!
 
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