Most of you already know that here at The Beginners Lens, we’re big fans of FX Photo Studio. We’ve already <a href="#" title="#">sung their praises</a> in this comprehensive app review. So to follow on from that, we’re taking a little bit of time today to go through one of FX Photo Studio’s coolest features…the masking tool! 

If you’re at all familiar with Photoshop, you probably have a good idea of how a masking tool works. Essentially, it allows you to select one part of an image to apply an effect, or multiple effects while leaving the rest of the image untouched. This is particularly useful for getting creative and bringing a bit of life into your photos through selective editing.

Let’s use the FX Photo Studio masking tool! 

1.	Open up the FX Photo Studio app, and navigate to your camera roll. 

[imageeffect type="frame" align="aligncenter" width="225" height="338"  alt="FX Photo Studio Home Screen" url="http://thebeginnerslens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IMG_0827.png"  ]
<br class="spacer_" />

2.	Tap on a photo you want to edit to open it up in FX Photo Studio. 




3.	With the photo open, tap on +FX Add Effect to choose an effect to add to your photo. The effect will be added to the whole photo. 



4.	Now tap on the masking tool to select the area of the photo you want to effect. You can choose to either draw the effect on, or erase the effect from the 
photo; in this case we’ve chosen to draw the effect on. Be sure to tap the eye icon at the top of the app so you can see an outline of what you are drawing. 


5.	Use the pan and zoom button in the bottom right hand corner of the app to move around the image and to zoom in and out to get around the small details. 


6.	When you’ve selected the whole are, click Apply to see the results. 


7.	Add several effects in the same way – either selecting an area to effect or erasing the effect from a selected area, leaving the rest of the photo effected.


8.	Once you’ve added all the effects you want to use, click Save! 

If you’ve got a great photo you’ve edited with the FX Photo Studio masking tool, please share it with us in the comments below!
