How to use layers in Adobe Photoshop

One of the most important features of Adobe photoshop is layers. By knowing what layers are and effectively using it will take you to the next level of Adobe Photoshop.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adobe photoshop CS2

1. When you open a photo using adobe Photoshop and look in the layer's palette, it will show one layer and it's called "background". To really take advantage of many features offered by Photoshop (such as color adjustment, hue adjustments, creating text, editing text, color enhancement), one must use layers. WHY?? Because individual layer allows you to modify each layer independent of others. So, it makes it easier to go back to the image and make corrections later on.

2. Most people familiar with adobe Photoshop use many layers in their document. To understand their work, you must understand that the appearance of a Photoshop document is stacked from top to bottom as layers.

3. To create a new layer, go to layer, new, and layer. Another layer will be created in front of the selected layer. It will be transparency. In Photoshop, transparency is the checkerboard pattern. It means there are no pixels in that layer. Most of the time, you will not need to create a new layer.

4. To duplicate the image into a new layer by itself is important because it will allow you to modify that image and easily see the before and after of modification by simply turning on and off the layer you just duplicated. There is a small eyeball in front of each layer; turn the eyeball on and off will turn on and off the visibility of that layer.

5. Alt clicking on the eyeball in front of the layer will make it visible and turn off all other layers.

6. If you want to modify one specific layer, then you need to select it to make it active. Click on the layer to make it active. When the layer is highlighted, then you can modify it.

7. You can quickly select all opaque areas in a layer by Ctrl-clicking the layer in the Layers palette. When you hold down the Ctrl key, the mouse pointer turns into a hand with a square selection marquee (below left). The result will be that all the pixels in the layer will be selected. You will see a row of "marching ants" around the selected pixels in the layer

8. You can change the stacking order of a layer by dragging it to the right place and drop. Changing the stacking order will affect the appearance of the final image.

9. You can also adjust the opacity of the layers by dragging the opacity sliding bar. Opacity of 0 will completely make the layer disappear and Opacity of 100 will make the layer opaque.

10. To delete a layer, drag it to the trash can icon.

Tips & Warnings

• If you couldn't see the layers palette, then go to widow and select layer.

[Gardengates]

on 9/22/2008 Thanks so much. I've been really frustrated with this program as it works so differently than the other programs I use. This really helps!

[amylaine]

on 9/21/2008 Great tips thanks.