I have a few photos whose contrast/colours I'd like to change and I'm tying myself in knots with the use of masks. When trying my first mask of one area, I found it a bit disconcerting to find that the pink overlay disappeared as soon as I'd applied the first effect. After playing around a little, I found that the masked area could still be modified even although it wasn't that evident I was using a mask (layer menu aside)

I also can't seem to find an easy way of then modifying only the rest of the photo outside the masked area. In order to invert the mask, do I need to copy the shape used for the original mask, and then invert?

What if there are several areas in the photo I want to mask and amend differently, as well as the entire background itself?

I've tried searching the forum for a tutorial but without any luck. Could someone please post a simple example of any photo, showing how to mask off more than one area and treating them and the background as separately enhanceable areas?

Thanks

PS Using XPGD6 on Windows 7