Layer Mask trouble

Hello,
I'm a student assistant for a beginning Digital Art class, we teach the basics of Photoshop to create artwork. We recently upgraded to CS4 and are now having trouble with the layer masks. Instead of showing the normal window were you can see what exactly is being masked, we only see the layer mask icon. (The square with the white circle in the middle)
Does anyone know why that is? On my own laptop it's fine, it's just on the school computers that we see the icon instead of the mask itself. (perhaps a preference setting?)
Thank You
Melanie

Thanks,
You know what is weird is that I tried on my laptop to recreate the same icon with it, (by choosing none for the thumbnails) and it made me realize. I can see the images of the layers at school with the mask icon next to it. With this none option you can't see either, interesting...
We'll school's tomorrow and we will definitely try it out. Thank You for getting back so fast!!!
Melanie

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I don't see any black on your mask. It should look something like this: Whatever is painted black on the mask will be masked on the layer, depending on the transparancy of the black.

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I swear I must be going nutso. I have a photo taken with a rather extreme 10mm shift of a shift lens, which consequently has a gradual darkening toward the top of the photo. No problem, says I. I just added a layer mask, clicked on the gradient tool and drew a line (in the appropriate direction) with that tool. What I got was a transparent area at the black end (of the gradient applied to the mask) grading to the darker part of the image showing through at the other end (of the gradient.)
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Thanks, that's exactly what I've done.....now I'm at least certain I'm not going nutso . Specifically, I have image 2 stacked above image 1, with the mask for image 2 appearing on the same layer. However, when I apply the gradient, exactly as you have indicated, I do not get image 4. Instead I get image 2 showing through at the top where the mask is white, and then a gradual fade over the black part of the mask to the diamond pattern typical of transparent layer.
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BAB

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Hello guys,
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right beside the layer mask.
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The only

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How do I add a second layer mask to turn more areas transparent?

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PS CC (since JAN 2014 update) Layer-mask editing causes hangs/crashes

ONLY since JAN 2014 update, PS CC has been hanging/crashing when I paint/edit a layer mask. All may be well at first (or not), but suddenly the display of the mask (or mask overlay on the layer itself, as shown when hitting backslash key) is not shown in full but renders in s-l-o-w-l-y in rectilinear pieces <snapshot below was taken before video card upgraded but is still typical of what I mean>. When I view Windows' Task Manager for PS, I see my CPUs are each working at their upper limits (up to 80+-90+%), varying only by a few points, over a VERY long time... which could be MANY minutes. OR the System has decided PS is Not Responding.
In any case, whenever this happens, it means in all practicality PS CC is not working, so I either kill it or it's crashed.
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Adobe Photoshop Version: 14.2.1 (14.2.1 20140207.r.570 2014/02/07:23:00:00) x64
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Version: 6.1 Service Pack 1
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:14, Stepping:5 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2
Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2664 MHz
Built-in memory: 16379 MB
Free memory: 12453 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 14697 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 60 %
Image tile size: 1024K
Image cache levels: 4
Font Preview: Medium
TextComposer: Latin
Display: 1
Display Bounds: top=0, left=0, bottom=1200, right=1920
OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.
OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.
OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced
OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.
AIFCoreInitialized=1
AIFOGLInitialized=1
OGLContextCreated=1
NumGPUs=1
gpu[0].OGLVersion="3.0"
gpu[0].MemoryMB=2048
gpu[0].RectTextureSize=16384
gpu[0].Renderer="GeForce GTX 660/PCIe/SSE2"
gpu[0].RendererID=4544
gpu[0].Vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
gpu[0].VendorID=4318
gpu[0].HasNPOTSupport=1
gpu[0].DriverVersion="9.18.13.3221"
gpu[0].Driver="nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um"
gpu[0].DriverDate="20131219000000.000000-000"
gpu[0].CompileProgramGLSL=1
gpu[0].TestFrameBuffer=1
gpu[0].OCLPresent=1
gpu[0].OCLVersion="1.1"
gpu[0].CUDASupported=1
gpu[0].CUDAVersion="6.0.1"
gpu[0].OCLBandwidth=1.16816e+011
gpu[0].glGetString[GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION]="4.40 NVIDIA via Cg compiler"
gpu[0].glGetProgramivARB[GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB][GL_MAX_PROGRAM_INSTRUCTIONS_ARB]=[16384]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS]=[4]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_COMBINED_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS]=[192]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VERTEX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS]=[32]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS]=[32]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_DRAW_BUFFERS]=[8]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VERTEX_UNIFORM_COMPONENTS]=[4096]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_FRAGMENT_UNIFORM_COMPONENTS]=[2048]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VARYING_FLOATS]=[124]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VERTEX_ATTRIBS]=[16]
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_VERTEX_SHADER]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_FRAGMENT_SHADER]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_EXT_FRAMEBUFFER_OBJECT]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_TEXTURE_RECTANGLE]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_TEXTURE_FLOAT]
I work on digital-photography files, and use a layer mask in almost every file, so this relatively-recent bug is a big PITA, having to switch back and forth between CS6 and CC!
Until there's a fix... is there a way to roll-back my PS CC version to BEFORE the JAN 15, 2014 update?

I am not qualified to comment on technical issues; I'm just a user whose son in IT is my 'technical support department.' (But he's not much of a PS user.)
I'm pretty sure, however, that all my Prefs were set to the same things BEFORE the Jan 16, 2014 PS CC update as after (unless the update itself changed something I was unaware of... the settings APPEARED to be the same but I can't easily locate my notes of what my Prefs were from long ago).
And they were the same as the PS CS6 I have had installed on this same system for a very long time, with older video card with older driver, with newer driver; newer video card with newest driver, etc. Yet after that CC update, CC has not (until this workaround) worked re 'the masking bug' for me, yet CS6 has always worked just the same.
So I conclude that the only variable (other than the video card upgrade I did in an attempt to solve this and of course those Windows auto-updates) in this scenario IS something to do with PS *CC*, and after Jan 16, 2014.
As for restarting the machine vs. restarting PS, well, PS is the major player of my system, so when I shut that (and LR) down, I might as well 'clean things up' by Restarting. BTW, I am in the habit of closing and reopening PS (CC or CS6) whenever I finish with a file and load another, in order to get back some of that memory which PS never seems to want to let go. (This is not new to the latest versions, I think. My son says it's a 'memory hog'? ;-) ) I track its memory use in Windows' Task Manager and find that seems to let it 'refresh' itself. (See, I told you I'm not a technical person. ;-) ) But I do not think this has anything to do with the bug. Just a quirk of PS. Like when a tool goes all wonky (for example, its little icon becomes just a 'plus' sign even though the tool is still performing correctly, it's telling me, I think, that it would like to be restarted. And that makes it feel all better... I mean, tool icon reappears.)
Anyway... it's up to Adobe to figure out IF and what may be wrong with PS CC -- it still doesn't work for me as I had it configured at first, and I think it should, right? -- and to fix that... PLEASE. SOON.

Why doesn't Photoshop always generate a layer mask

I believe it was in CS4 that Adobe expanded the use of automatic layer masks ... perhaps it was with adjustment layers (I'm not quite sure)
I don't know about others, but it would save me considerable time in the long run if every new layer, (whether it is generated as a copy, from a plug-in, as a cut, or as a new blank layer) recevied an automatic layer mask. It takes no file space, but more often than not I find myself needing one. It sure would be nice to jump right into masking rather than having to first create the layer mask. Why did they stop at adjustment layers?
Am I alone in this?
thanks

Adding layers like Text, Raster and smart objects never have had automatic layers mask added. Adding adjustment layers always came with an automatic layer mask until CS4. Adode introduced bugs in CS4 when they added the adjustment panel these bugs have been carried forward into CS5 and CS6. Adobe added two options in the adjustment panels fly-out panel. These options are designed to be global, not just adjustment panel options. These options only work sometimes when changed from their default settings. When changed from their default settings they try to change Photoshop historic default operation. When you change Photoshop default operation Action, Scripts and Plug-ins that add adjustment layers may not work correctly. Adobe should fix Photoshop and remove the two bad Adjustment Panel fly-out options. The Adjustment Panel fly-out menu option to not add Layer masks can not be safely set, same goes for the option to always clip added layer mask, if you use Actions, Scripts and Plug-ins that add adjustment layers.

Layer Mask trouble

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