Gradient layer to control transparency?

This is probably childsplay for a lot of you photoshop pro's out there, but I'm stumped.

I want to blend two images together. The technique I'm using now, is on the top layer I'm using at large eraser to blend out the parts I want to show through. However this is destructive, I would like to have a seperate layer, that is a solid color with transparency in parts to control how the other layer shows through. Can this be done using some sort of layer mask? If someone could point me to a tutorial or give me some tips I'd appreciate it.

news wrote:

This is probably childsplay for a lot of you photoshop pro's out there, but I'm stumped.

I want to blend two images together. The technique I'm using now, is on the top layer I'm using at large eraser to blend out the parts I want to show through. However this is destructive, I would like to have a seperate layer, that is a solid color with transparency in parts to control how the other layer shows through. Can this be done using some sort of layer mask? If someone could point me to a tutorial or give me some tips I'd appreciate it.

Layer mask is the way to go. Here's one tutorial. Many others can be found by doing a Google search on Layer Mask.

http://www.grafx-design.com/01photo.html

Layer masks are very easy once you get the hang of them and they are extremely useful.

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