Have you ever needed to apply more than one layer mask to the same layer? Say, for example, you use a gradient on a layer mask to fade the left side of an image into the background and then do a little touchup with the brushes. Now you want to fade the bottom of the image. If you apply another gradient to the mask, it will remove the original one. Here’s a workaround: Make the layer active in the Layers panel and press Command-G (PC: Ctrl-G) to put it in a group. You can now apply a separate mask to the group. You can also put that group into yet another group and add a mask to that too. As you can see, you can keep nesting them like Russian nesting dolls and apply a layer mask to each—really useful.
This tip previously appeared in Colin Smith’s Photoshop Tips column, in the August, 2019 issue of Photoshop User magazine.