How to Master Any Skill
It's simpler than you think
In my previous post, I showed you the very first photo edit I made after I started using Affinity Photo.
For my next edit, I wanted to try something I'd never done before.
Masking.
It’s when you select a part of the photo and apply or withhold an edit only to that area. Sounds simple, right?
It felt like rocket science to me back then.
I watched a few tutorial videos on Youtube and decided to give it a shot. This is the photo I picked:
I wanted to make the background black and white and keep the colors on the flowers.
I started by drawing out the flowers with the selection tool, which was simple. After that, I applied the mask and the edit aaand… nothing happened.
Back to Youtube.
I thought I’d gotten the hang of it, but apparently I was wrong. I studied the videos like I was cramming for an exam and made a few adjustments to the photo. Then something happened!
The flowers turned black-and-white (facepalm).
Back to Youtube again.
I don’t know how long I spent just clicking on things. Inverting, inverting again, doing, undoing, deleting (just kidding).
It was pretty frustrating and my patience was running low. And then suddenly…
It worked!
Somehow, I’d managed to create a mask the correct way and make the flowers pop. This is how it turned out:
Nice right?
Practice makes perf… second nature
Back then, I didn’t fully understand how masking worked, and it took a lot of brainpower because I had to actively think about what I was doing and how it would affect the photo.
And now?
Now, I use this technique in all of my edits, and I don’t even think about what I’m doing! It just flows.
The takeaway?
Practice, practice, practice!
The reason it flows now is because I’ve practiced this technique so much that it’s become second nature.
When you’re learning something new, even the most basic stuff will feel hard. But don’t let it discourage you.
You just have to put in the hours.
It’ll be frustrating at first, and it’ll feel like you’re not making progress. But slowly, you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll move forward, one step at a time, until you’ve…
Mastered the skill.
PS. Want to know how my second attempt at masking went?
Read this 👇🏽
