Test Your Skills

How To Avoid The “Blob” Effect

Using an artistic clipping mask tells the world that your page is, well, artistic. Most of the time a good mask design will use photos that are beautiful and stir something of awe and wonder in the viewer. Not always, but most of the time.

Since you can only see part of a photo clipped to a mask, you had better make sure that the photo is “readable.” In other words, you want the viewer to instantly understand what the photo is about, and, ideally, the photo should stir up a feeling of artistic wonder.

What you don’t want is the “Blob” effect. This happens when someone looks at the mask and says, “Huh?”

Take the following photo. I can tell it has fall leaves on it, but it doesn’t really make sense. It might work great on a rectangular grid with several other photos about autumn. But by itself on a mask it just makes me say, “Huh?”

What could we do to achieve our objective of masking a photo so it becomes art that inspires?