How show area being painted on mask?

Question

I suspect this is obvious to the informed observer, but I've been searching and can't seem to find it........
Do the normal processing for high pass sharpening - duplicate a layer, set blur to 10px, set to hard light......  Works fine
but it sharpens my sky.....  SO, create a mask and paint the sky with black so it doesn't get sharpened.....  All this
works just fine...
What I WANT to do is be able to see ON MY IMAGE, where I've painted with black......  something like the pink overlay
you get in quick mask mode...  HOW do I turn this on and off so I can see where I"m painting my mask?

Answer 1

Hi, Dave.
I'm a little unclear exactly what you need. But is sounds like you're on the right track. Maybe a little out of order.
Anyway, here's one approach.
1. Duplicate  the background layer twice. Fill the bottom layer with red.
2. Sharpen the Backround copy layer.
3. Select Background copy 2. Do a rough selection of the sky. I used the magic wand.
4. Click on the Add Vector Mask button (highlighted).
Background copy 2 is the unsharpend sky. But the mask is quick and dirty and needs refinement. There is no feature like Quick Mask for vector masking. But one way to check your progress is to Ctrl+Click on the Layer mask thumbnail. This will show you a selection where your mask is, but that's about it. You can't edit in this state. More useful is to turn of the background copy. You can edit the mask in this state. And you can clearly see what is masked and what is not. But still a little awkward, because you can't see the whole image.
So, to create a fake quick mask effect, turn the Background copy layer back on, and set the opacity to 50%. Now you can see both layers, but you can tell what you've masked and what you haven't. Set up this way, the unpainted areas will have a red tint.
When your done fine tuning your mask. Turn the opacity back up to 100% and you're good to go.
And of course you can use a different color and opacity. Whatever helps you see what you're doing best.
Peace,
Lee