Fringe happening with masking

[NealF2]

Hi.

I just started to use masking and am running into a problem.
I'm using it for highlights and shadows on a character.

I noticed hat the mask covers the black outline strokes. So I did some playing around with Blend modes.

For the highlights I found that Overlay allows the black outlines to show. That's good. But there's about a one or two pixel white fringe that goes outside the strokes. This isn't as noticeable when the blend mode is in Normal, but then the strokes get faded out by the semi transparent highlight mask.

Is there a way to get rid of this? Or do I have to choose between faded strokes and fringe?

thanks.

[Maestral]

Perhaps you could try these settings for the layer/s below the highlights and shadows

[NealF2]

Hi.
Not sure what you mean.

The highlight and shadow are the lowest layers.

Here's the layers from top to bottom. All inside the mask folder:

Head Mask- hide all
Highlights - Mask this layer (I put it in Overlay blend mode so it won't mask the line drawing on the Head layer.)
Shading - Mask this layer (I put it in Overlay blend mode so it won't mask the line drawing on the Head layer.)
Brows (folder) - no masking in this group
Head (everything except mouths and pupils and brows) - Add to mask

The masking is working. Just get that fringing if I have the Highlights layer outside the Head layer.

[Maestral]

My previous post was about adding/activating Exclude Strokes option. That way, you would not need Overlay because everything would be masked inside the shape but inside the stroke as well (no overlap, even from shapes going outside the head shape). However, you'd still have that fringe. Minimal but still there.

The thing which could sort things out is to have Highlights and Shadows as Liquid shapes, on the same layer where the head is. There would be no fringe with Liquid shapes.

Here's another ss. On the left - Exclude Strokes and on the right = Liquid Shapes. I left the strokes on the left one (and Overlay for Highlights), just to show that even the shape with stroke (on another layer) would still be masked within the stroke of the Head layer.

[NealF2]

Thanks.
I'll give it a try. Haven't used liquid shapes yet.