Destructive and Non-destructive Editing

 Non-destructive Editing

First, I had to download a koala picture and the desert background picture. Then I had to resize the koala by using the transform tool and place it to the bottom right corner. To remove the background of the koala I used a mask layer.

Masks are good to edit specific area of the image. The media of working with masks, is that they allow us to continuously edit or modify what you work on. In masks white reveals and black conceals. 

The Final Result

By clicking on the icon which is located on the base of the layers panel (it kind of looks like a square with a hole punch through it) it will create a mask on the layer that is selected.

There are two primary types of masks in Photoshop, layer masks and clipping masks. Layer masks use values of grey to assign levels of transparency to specific portions of a layer or group of layers while clipping masks use the transparency of one layer to define that of a different layer or group of layers.

Refine Edge

The refine edge command can be used to touch up an existing image. The refine edge command can be found by going to the mask properties then clicking 'mask edge', or just by going to select on the top and then clicking 'refine edge'. ( options + command + R )

 This is how the refine mask command looks like.

Making Selections

First, I had to use the image of the koala again and put it on the bottom right corner of the desert background. Then I used the wand tool to remove the koala image background. 

Magic Wand
The Magic Wand tool, is one of the oldest selection tools in Photoshop. Unlike other selection tools that select pixels in an image based on shapes or by detecting object edges, the Magic Wand selects pixels based on tone and colour.

Selection Tool
You can use the Quick Selection tool to quickly “paint” a selection using an adjustable round brush tip. As you drag, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows defined edges in the image.