quick mask

:confused:Hi
I use quick mask all the time, but I seem to have changed it without knowing what I did I think. Basically I often change small parts of a photo (ie lighten a face) and to do this I would mask their face (with the brush tool) and then invert the mask, I tried to do this yesterday, when I inverted, the entire photo would mask and the small area I had tried to capture would be swallowed up (not sure if this is making any sense) on top of this, when I masked an area and click onto the quick mask to try to show the area selected (with the dotted line) this does not happen, it just turns it off. Today however the problem seems to be even worse, when I try to mask, nothing at all happens! I have brush selected at 100% opacity, I click onto the quick mask, go to the area and paint, nothing at all happens, however what I am trying to do is registering in the history. I have no idea what I may have done or how to correct it, so would be so grateful if anyone could shed any light, as not being able to use it how I usually do it driving me insane!
Many Thanks!!!

Sounds like you might have a very large feather setting for the selection.

Hi George
Thanks for the suggestion, Am not really that clued up on all that is photoshop as although I use it daily I am self taught and learn little by little. I have never used a feather selection, where is this and could you please tell me how to turn it off?
Many thanks!!

When you have any selection tool active, the contextual menu at the top will have a box for Feather. This will soften a selection by an increment you define in that box (kind of like a blur). Make sure that box has nothing in it. If it does, change it to 0. Otherwise, you could try restoring Photoshop to its default settings (just make sure you save any swatches, actions, brushes, etc. that you want to keep, so you can reload them).

Thanks for your help R2thaC, I can see the feather selection when I have something else selected like the rectangle marquee tool but its not there when I have paintbrush selected. If I select quickmask and invert it, and then erase out, that's the closest I can get now, lol. I think I might restore default settings like you suggest! Does kind of feel like it's got a bug in it so think it's the only way to go now. Thanks a lot!