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Question on Vector Mask Functionality


Blitzer

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Hello everyone, I'm fairly new to Photoshop CS 5 so I apologize if I am asking the wrong type of questions, here goes:

When working with Vector Masks can you:
1) "Link" or "share" one image's vector mask with other images? (ex. If I made "Building A" then duplicated it, but then wanted to change what Building A looked like, I would only have to change the source mask and the copies would be updated.
2) Move the image independent of the vector mask (it seems like I can only move the vector mask, not the image itself). Or in other words: can I move the image and have the mask follow it, instead of only being able to move the vector mask inside of the image boundaries?

My application of the question:
I'm making a 2D top down layout of a "city block" type area. To fill in the buildings, I've made Building A,B,C etc, and use multiple copies of each building. Ideally, I would like to be able to "link" or share say Building A's vector mask with all the other instances of Building A (so that when I change the master, they all change to the new mask shape). The second behavior I'm trying to find is the ability to move the layer without moving where the Vector Mask is on that layer (since it seems that you can only move where the mask is, meaning that even if I could share masks, they would all end up in the same place meaning I would have to re-position each one by hand again.

Any ideas are appreciated, thank you for reading.
 
Hey Blitzer, just for clarification, there are layer masks and vector masks, are you sure we're talking about a vector mask?
 
I don't think either of your desired behaviors are possible. But I am still searching........I might find something.

An alternative to Number 2 would be clipping masks. This would allow you to move the building behind a mask............only problem is you will have to convert the vector mask to a shape and then clip the building image to it.
 

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