Masking the adjustment layer

[Lich555]

Hey!

I've created the brightness adjustment layer and now I want to mask it to some areas of my image (I've increased britghtness of the layers to make it more visible here).

1.Now I have to use Erase Brush Tool to mask out areas where I don't want this brightness effect? The thing is that I only want to brighten small area of my image, so it would be better just to select areas where I want this layer, not where I don't want it. How to do that?

2.I've used Erase Brush Tool on that circle on the left but now I want to remove this area. I thought I just have to use Paint Brush Tool, to "restore" the mask, but when I select the Paint Brush Tool it works exactly like the Erase Brush Tool and it wants to darken the image - that's darker circle on the right (or, more precisely, it selects part of the image where I don't want the mask with brightening effect). Why is that? That's what's shown

[AffinityJules]

You need not use the erase brush.

Each adjustment layer has a built in mask.

To hide any adjustment use a black brush on the adjustment layer and paint it out.

[iconoclast]

A mask is basicly only a greyscale image. The dark areas of it represent transparency, the lighter areas represent opaque fill. So if you want to paint transparency, paint it black (as the Stones say). And if you want to restore opaque areas, paint it with white colour. This way, you can easily "erase" and restore whenever you want. And you can switch from foreground colour (e.g. black) to background colour (e.g. white) with the "X" key.