Tried to use it, no success. All I can see is a semi-transparent shape, and I don’t know what that means.
Basically you select a shape or layer group and apply the mask, it cuts that shape/group through all the layers below the mask to the base paint color.
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OK I’ll try, I’m still confused.
Managed to get a few minutes to play around with the new Masking feature & I think it’s got some potential.…
How it looks in the editor:
1 = original layer group made of solid shapes
2 = complete layer group masked
3 = only black layers masked
4 = only white layers masked
How it looks on a car:
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Good summary.
From the looks of it the mask will cut down to the paint no matter what you do, right? The blue rectangle is also getting cut in your examples.
That limits the potential of the feature but let’s see if it evolves further in future updates.
Yes, it does cut all the way to the base paint no matter where you place it. That does limit the ways this tool can currently be used and the next logical evolution is to allow us to use it only on a specific group of vinyls and still show other vinyls underneath it.
Oh I see so the editor doesn’t show the mask working… that’s strange.
I guess I’m missing something. I see an additional menu option “Apply a Mask Shape”. That seems to work as expected, but it only allows application of basic primatives and predefined shapes. What option allows application of a vinyl group as a mask?
I made a group, and it said make Mask From group… although after that point I was lost. Anyway, it looks like gold paint is finally here.
Thanks. It seems if you highlight the layers you want to make negative, there is an option to “Create Mask from Selected Layers”. Not as intuitive as I might have hoped, but it will be extremely useful.
Not trying to offend at all, but the process needed to create a layer mask from a vinyl group is literally a single step by selecting the clearly labeled option that says ‘Create Mask from Selected Layers’. How could it possibly be any more intuitive than that? How would you propose it to possibly be any simpler?
It’s a great feature, but it has an unfortunate limitation. It seems the mask cuts through everything beneath it. You cannot scope it using groups. In the example below it masks out all layer groups below it, including the semi-transparent biasing layer that is intended to boost the base color.
Yes … that is the obvious next feature of the tool and what we have been asking for for a long time. This is a great first step, but they need to continue to develop it and not just leave it as is now.
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Thats right. Ask for high resolution vynils and stickers for a long time. 
I think a good solution might be to add a new layer type that functioned as a mask stop. It would not have to have any properties like size, color, etc. It would just serve as a hint for the mask layers above to stop cutting at that elevation. I think this would allow for sufficiently flexible multi-layer effects using the mask tool.
You should be able to boost the base colour from the top instead of the bottom so that you use the Cola shape with transparency instead of a square tile.
The problem with putting the biasing vinyl on top is it discolors the area around the text too, which is not the desired effect.
That’s why I said use the Cola shape. Oh yes overlapping groups are hard to align with transparency.
If you could set the opacity at the group level, this would work. But since opacity can currently only be set at the primitive level, and each of the letters in the script consist of dozens of overlapping primitives, I do not think the results would be good.
To be fair Aqua, it’s always been possible to have that effect, now it’s just less fiddly - or at least, it uses less layers 
I forgot to mention that’s why I put the blue layer behind my masked layer groups to illustrate that. Also not sure if there’s a way to add borders to masked text (didn’t have enough time to play around with it last night) so we might still have to employ the old method at times:
