Clipping masks are useful for more than creating interesting objects. In this lesson we'll learn another great reason to use clipping masks.

Open the document called celebrate.psd from the Part 4 lesson seven practice folder. I've already put this document together using skills I've already taught you. I created a new document, added several layers, some paper for the background, a stroke outline element, a Word Art title, and an artistic layer mask. I've also clipped three photos of fireworks to the mask layer. The photos aren't visible. But if I click on the Visibility icon next to a thumbnail, each layer becomes visible. These are all photos of fireworks.

Now why would I clip three photos to a single mask? Each photo covers the mask entirely so I can only see one photo at a time. But I've stacked the photos for a different reason. I'm not trying to create an object like I did with the star. In this case, I'm not sure which photo I want to use. And by stacking them I can easily try out different options. Let's move the star we created earlier onto this document and I'll show you what I mean. Activate the star-whimsy.psd document you created and saved earlier. In case you haven't created yours yet, I placed a copy of mine in your Part 4 lesson seven practice folder.

Here's the merged star layer at the top. I could have also opened the single layer PNG file of the star. You'll find the PNG star in the lesson seven practice folder as well. Before you move the star on to the celebrate document, check the destination document to make sure you're on the right layer. You'll want to activate the top layer in the Layers panel because you'll want the star to land above that layer. Now go back to the star-whimsy document. With the Move tool click and drag the star layer on to the celebrate document. Let go the mouse over the photo so it will land above the photo in the Layers panel. Press Ctrl T in Windows or Command T on a Mac to get transform options. Press Alt in Windows or Option on a Mac and click and drag from a corner handle.

To resize the star, click inside the outline and drag it over to the right and continue to resize the star. Also click outside the boundary and click and drag in the direction you want to tip it. We'll tip it just a little bit over here. Somewhere right about there is looking good. Click on the green checkmark to commit the change.

To add a drop shadow to the star, in the Menu Bar choose Layer, Layer Style Style Settings. Use 120 degrees for the lighting angle. Click on the Drop Shadow checkbox and make your adjustments. We'll use 8 for the size, 3 for the distance, and 60% opacity. Then click OK.

Now we're ready to work on our design. Which photo do we want to use with this design? By having all three photos clipped to the same mask, we can A-B them to determine which one would look the best. This top photo has a red color in it that goes with the red on the title and star. So that's good. To check out the next photo, I'll click on the Visibility icon of the top photo to hide it. This photo also has some red and I like the bold colors. If I hide the middle photo, I can see the bottom photo. Hmm, this photo doesn't really do much for this design in my opinion. So let's just get rid of it. I'll click on the layer and press the Delete key. Click Don't Show Again and click Yes. In some versions of Photoshop Elements, you'll need to drag the layer to the trash.

So now it's between these two photos. This one and this one. Let me try something with the bottom photo here. I'll click on its layer to make it the active layer and get Transform Options. I'll click and drag from a corner handle to make it bigger. Move it over a bit. And let's make it a little bit smaller and click and drag outside the bounding box to rotate it a little bit. That looks good right there and we'll move it over some, make it a little bit bigger. There we go. And then I'll click on the checkmark to commit the change. Now let's see which one I like better, the top photo or the bottom photo.

I really like this bottom photo better. So I'll click on the top photo and press the Delete key. Can you see how valuable it is to be able to quickly compare two or more possibilities? I also like to use multiple clipped layers to evaluate two or more papers I want to use on a mask.

Here's my finished design after I made my final tweaks and adjustments, and added some glitter, which you'll find in your practice folder for this lesson. Notice there's no drop shadow on the glitter because glitter doesn't usually need a drop shadow. So that's how to use stacked layers to help you make decisions about your design. Especially if you're trying to figure out which photo or paper to use.