Why Your Black PNG Mask Shows Nothing At All

A black cut-out read as Luminance reveals nothing - and the file is perfectly fine. Alpha uses the transparency instead.

  • Short
  • 1:18
  • Published Sep 23, 2026

About this video

A Mask draws nothing and cuts other layers to its shape. The setting that catches everyone is Reads: Alpha or Luminance, because black and transparent are the same thing to the alpha shader.

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Transcript

On Luminance, a BLACK cut-out reveals nothing. Black means hide.

This card's glint is an ordinary shape. What keeps it inside the card is a mask.

Turn the mask off and the glint runs straight over the edge, across the background, past the chip. That is the difference a mask makes, and it is the only honest way to see one: not by reading the panel, but by watching what the viewer sees change.

Move a rectangle: a wipe. Grow a circle: an iris.

That is Mask, end to end. See you in the next video!

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