This Paint Shop Pro 5.0 Tutorial attempts to explain how to use painting masks. By "painting mask" I mean, masks that are saved and used simply by loading and painting them. Though there may be more, I'll be discussing only two methods. The first method uses a layer for the mask and then requires painting (as expected). The second method uses no layers and was surprising in that I didn't have to paint (in this case). For this tutorial, download the "Ocean Mask" and unzip it into your favorite directory. To see our other masks or if you are having trouble downloading, Click Here

   First Method:

	Open a new image 200 x 200 x 16 million colors with a blue background. Set foreground color to white.
	Ensure your layers window is showing by clicking the layers button on the top tool bar. Click the "Add New Layer" button in the lower left corner of the "Layers" window. On the next window, accept the defaults by clicking OK. The new layer will be active. Load the mask [Masks > Load From Disk]. You will not see anything unless you choose view through masks as shown here.
	Click the paint bucket called "Flood Fill" and set "Controls" to [Solid Color] [RGB Value] [Tolerence=200] [Opacity=100] Paint the image with white, the foreground color. For jpg or gif, flattten by merging the two layers [Layers > Merge > Merge Visible]

   Second Method:

	Open a new image 200 x 200 x 16 million colors with a blue background.
	Load the mask [Masks > Load From Disk]. Notice you now see a transparent background.
	Invert the mask [Masks > Invert]
	Flatten by going to [Layers > Merge > Merge All] even though only one layer is present. Note that I didn't paint with white because flattening uses white when converting transparent background to flat state.