Cut Out Glass in Photoshop with Blending Modes

181K views 6,459 likes 177 comments

Jump to a step in the video (14)

Click a time to play the video from there.

Show Shortcuts for

Text size

Appearance

Your choices stick across every tutorial on this device.

Glass is one of the hardest subjects to mask: a normal cutout either kills the transparency or drags the old background along. In this tutorial, you will learn how to cut out glass in Photoshop using Blending Modes, so the liquid stays see-through while the solid parts stay solid.

You will move a glass bottle from a white background into a new scene, rebuild its shadows, highlights, and color on separate layers, then add a painted surface light, a cast shadow, and a warped refraction effect. The workflow suits product shots, like wine bottles, and everything stays editable.

Key Takeaways

Put the layer mask on the group so one mask controls every bottle layer.
Blend three copies of the bottle: Multiply keeps shadows, Screen keeps highlights, Color restores hue and saturation.
Desaturate the Shadows and Highlights copies (Ctrl Shift U, or Command Shift U on macOS) so only luminosity drives the blend.
Clipped Levels adjustments control how strong shadows and specular highlights appear.
A Path Blur layer set to Multiply creates a directional cast shadow.

What You’ll Learn
Requirements
Keyboard Shortcuts In This Tutorial
How to Cut Out Glass in Photoshop
Set Up the Bottle Group
Select the Bottle and Mask the Group
Make Three Copies of the Bottle
Keep the Shadows with Multiply
Keep the Highlights with Screen
Bring Back the Color
Fine-Tune with Clipped Levels
Paint the Solid Areas Back In
Add Realistic Light and Shadows
Paint the Highlight on the Surface
Create the Cast Shadow with Path Blur
Fake the Glass Refraction
Clean Up the Layer Mask
Frequently Asked Questions
Your Turn to Cut Out Glass in Photoshop
Related Links

What You’ll Learn

Mask an entire group with one Select Subject layer mask
Split a glass object into shadows, highlights, and color with Blending Modes
Paint surface light with Color Dodge and cast a shadow with Path Blur
Fake glass refraction with a warped copy of the background

Requirements

Photoshop with Select Subject or the Object Selection Tool; the Quick Selection Tool works in older versions.
A glass object on a plain background, plus a new background image. Or use the tutorial files below.

Download Tutorial Files

347 – Cut Out Glass Bottle (11390 downloads)

Keyboard Shortcuts In This Tutorial

Action	Windows	macOS
Duplicate layer	Ctrl J	Command J
Desaturate layer	Ctrl Shift U	Command Shift U
New layer below current	Ctrl click New Layer icon	Command click New Layer icon
Swap foreground and background colors	X	X
Decrease or increase brush size	[ or ]	[ or ]
Soften or harden brush edge	Shift [ or Shift ]	Shift [ or Shift ]
Temporary Eyedropper	Hold Alt	Hold Option
Duplicate and invert a layer mask	Alt Shift drag the mask	Option Shift drag the mask
Load a mask as a selection	Ctrl click the mask	Command click the mask
Fill with foreground color	Alt Backspace	Option Delete
Deselect	Ctrl D	Command D
Free Transform	Ctrl T	Command T
Zoom Tool	Z	Z

How to Cut Out Glass in Photoshop

The trick: instead of masking the bottle once, you rebuild it from three copies. One carries the shadows, one the highlights, one the color. Blending Modes drop everything else out, so the background shows through the liquid.

Set Up the Bottle Group

Start with two layers: the new background and the bottle shot. Create a group named Bottle in the Layers panel and drag the bottle layer into it.

Select the Bottle and Mask the Group

Select the bottle layer and choose Select > Subject; Photoshop’s AI selects the bottle. The Object Selection Tool also works, and older versions can use the Quick Selection Tool.

With the selection active, click the group itself and create a layer mask. One mask on the group controls every layer inside it; on a single layer, you would have to copy it to each duplicate and edit them all whenever it changed.

Make Three Copies of the Bottle

With the bottle layer selected, press Ctrl J (macOS: Command J) twice for three copies. Rename them Shadows, Highlights, and Color, and disable all three for now.

Keep the Shadows with Multiply

Enable the Shadows layer and desaturate it with Ctrl Shift U (macOS: Command Shift U). In the blending mode dropdown, pick Multiply from the Darken category; it hides highlights and keeps shadows, so the white background drops out.

Keep the Highlights with Screen

Enable and desaturate the Highlights layer the same way. This time you want the opposite: Screen, from the Lighten category, hides shadows and keeps bright values. Apply it and the bottle reads as transparent.

Bring Back the Color

Enable the Color layer but do not desaturate it. Set its blending mode to Color, which keeps hue and saturation while the luminosity of the layers below shows through. To understand what each mode is doing, read my guide to Blending Modes in Photoshop.

Fine-Tune with Clipped Levels

Select the Shadows layer, add a Levels adjustment layer, and click the clipping icon so it affects only the Shadows layer.
Drag the gamma slider: brightening fades the shadows, darkening brings them back.
Add a clipped Levels to the Highlights layer and darken it so only the specular highlights survive.
If the image ends up too dark, rebalance either Levels layer.

Paint the Solid Areas Back In

Zoom in and you will see background showing through areas that should be opaque. Select the Shadows layer, hold Ctrl (macOS: Command), and click the New Layer icon to add a layer directly below it. Name it Solid.

Grab the Brush Tool, make white your foreground color with X, and paint those areas back in. Size the brush with the bracket keys; hold Shift and tap [ for a softer edge. The group mask keeps every stroke inside the bottle, so paint loosely.

Add Realistic Light and Shadows

Read the light first. The shadow falls to the bottom right, so the light comes from the left: a highlight on the left of the surface, a cast shadow stretching right, and a hint of light behind the bottle where it shines through the glass.

Paint the Highlight on the Surface

Above the background layer, create a group named Light and Shadows with a layer called Highlight inside. With the Brush Tool, hold Alt (macOS: Option) for the Eyedropper Tool, sample a bright tone, and paint a large soft stroke where the light hits.

To keep the paint off the bottle, hold Alt Shift (macOS: Option Shift) and drag the Bottle group’s mask onto the Highlight layer; Photoshop duplicates and inverts it in one go.

Set the layer to Color Dodge, one of the eight blending modes that respond differently to Fill than to Opacity. Lower Fill until the light sits naturally; if the stroke is too crisp, soften it with Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and settle Fill around 52 percent.

Create the Cast Shadow with Path Blur

Ctrl click (macOS: Command click) the Bottle group’s mask to load it as a selection.
On a new layer, hold Alt (macOS: Option) to sample a dark brown, then fill the selection with Alt Backspace (macOS: Option Delete).
Deselect with Ctrl D (macOS: Command D) and go to Filter > Blur Gallery > Path Blur.
Drag the path to follow the light, left to right here, and raise the Speed to stretch the shadow.
Uncheck Centered Blur so the streak goes one way only, and move the end point to leave a small gap at the base, since the bottle bottom sits slightly raised. Press OK.
Set the shadow layer to Multiply and lower the Opacity if the effect feels too strong.

If the shadow covers your painted light, mask the shadow layer and paint with black to reveal it, softening the mask with Feather and Density in the Properties panel.

Fake the Glass Refraction

Real glass bends what you see through it. Click the background layer, drag a Rectangular Marquee selection slightly wider than the bottle, and press Ctrl J (macOS: Command J) to duplicate it onto a new layer.

Hold Shift as you drag that layer into the Bottle group; Shift drops it at the very bottom of the group. Press Ctrl T (macOS: Command T), right click, choose Warp, and drag the handles so the background lines bow and stop matching up. That mismatch reads as glass. Commit, then nudge the layer up with the Move Tool.

Clean Up the Layer Mask

Tap Z for the Zoom Tool, select the Bottle group’s mask, and paint with white to reveal pixels the automatic selection missed, or black to hide extras. A small, hard brush works best.

For straight edges, click once, hold Shift, and click again to draw a straight stroke between the points. This fine-tuning separates an obvious composite from a convincing one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you cut out glass in Photoshop?

Mask it with Select Subject, then blend three copies set to Multiply, Screen, and Color. The modes keep the shadows, highlights, and color while the new background shows through.

Which blending modes work best for masking glass?

Multiply keeps the shadows, Screen keeps the highlights, and Color restores the hue and saturation. Together they recreate the glass with real transparency over any background.

Why put the layer mask on the group instead of the layer?

One mask on the group controls every layer inside it. On a single layer, you would have to duplicate it onto each copy and update them all every time it changed.

Why do you desaturate the shadows and highlights layers?

Those layers only need to contribute luminosity. Desaturating keeps color shifts out of the blend; the separate Color layer restores hue and saturation.

How do you make a realistic cast shadow for a bottle?

Load the bottle mask as a selection, fill it with a dark color from the scene, and apply Path Blur with Centered Blur unchecked. Set the layer to Multiply and lower the Opacity to taste.

What is the difference between Opacity and Fill with Color Dodge?

Color Dodge is one of eight blending modes that treat Fill differently from Opacity. Lowering Fill changes the blend itself and usually gives a more natural light effect.

Does Select Subject work on transparent objects?

Yes, it gives you a solid outline, which is all the group mask needs. The transparency comes from the Blending Modes, not the selection.

Your Turn to Cut Out Glass in Photoshop

That is how you cut out glass in Photoshop without losing the glass: one group mask, three blended copies, a painted light, a Path Blur shadow, and a warped slice of background. Every piece stays editable.

Any bottle, glass, or jar responds to the same three-layer blend. Watch the video above to see every step in real time.

Keep going

If selections slow you down, my Selections and Masking Mastery course covers every selection and masking technique, from simple cutouts to hair and glass.

And if you are new here, subscribe on YouTube for a new Photoshop tutorial every week.

Final Image

Drag the slider to see before and after