Now click back on your original layer to exit the layer mask direct edit and hide all your adjustment layers. Now paste the black and white image you just copied into there. Now ALT+ Click in the layer mask icon to enter direct edit mode. Create a layer mask on your original layer. Now CTRL+ A to select the entire image and CTRL+ SHIFT+ C to copy the combined greyscale result.

You may have to tweak this a few times to get the amounts right. Tweak the Curves until everything you'd like to be solid/opaque is white, and everything you want fully transparent is black. This will give you a good visual reference though to tweak the black/white balance)Īdd an Invert adjustment layer, then a Curves adjustment layer. (Technically you could skip step, as we'll be pasting it into a layer mask which will convert it to greyscale anyway. If you don't have any gradient in your original image, you can just use a Threshold adjustment layer instead, which will result in 100% black or 100% white results. Update: Here are some step by step instructions:Īdd a Saturation/Hue adjustment layer and turn down the Saturation until the image has no color. You'd create a duplicate of the layer, desaturate and invert it, pasting the greyscale result into the original layers layermask. One method is to use the original image/layer as its own layer mask.

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