How to Copy a Layer in Photoshop

Video Transcript

"Adobe Photoshop is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated, and I am in no way affiliated with Adobe. All right, so on this tutorial, I'm going to show you guys about copying a layer. Most people don't know that you can actually copy an exact layer. So if I wanted to copy this exact text right here, that looks like this, all I have to do is either go into the layers up here, and hit duplicate layer, or if I want I can actually hit control "J" or command "J", or control "J" on PC, and it actually is going to duplicate my layer. As you can see down over here in my layers palette, now there's two layers called sample. There's one that's sample and one that's sample copy. Now one thing I didn't tell you guys earlier, is when you add these effects that we did earlier, like the drop shadow to the text, it actually flattens the text, and makes it un--you cannot go back and change letters or size, or you can change size with the free transform tool, but you cannot go back and change the color of your text. It basically rasterized your text, and it's now a flattened layer, and there is no way for you to go back and change your text, unfortunately. So now, the reason why we want to copy a layer sometimes, is to actually make a cool effect. As you can see, there's two sample text on here, and what I want to do, is I want to kind of create--and this is just a real basic thing, and I'm actually going to do it kind of fast because I'm not--have not talked about masking yet. So I'm going to use the masking tool to do this, but I kind of want to create a two--you know, another "S" underneath this one, to make it look kind of cool. So what I'm going to do, is I'm going to drag this--I'm going to keep this one there, and what I want to do is I want to actually hit my layer mask tool, which is this one right here. I'm sorry, which is this one right here--add a layer mask, as you can see. And this is going to be a quick thing that I'm going to do. You have to hit the paintbrush, select black, and now I'm actually cleaning up everything but the "S". So I'm going to have two "S's". Now what I want to do, as you can see--I'll show you guys what I did--you can see the "S" is all alone now. I'm going to bring the "S" over just a little bit. I'm actually just going to drag the first layer beneath this one, and as you can see, the "S" went behind the first original "S". Now I'm going to drop my opacity a little bit, and I'm actually going to duplicate this layer again, and make another "S". Although the very far "S" I want to be at the bottom, so I'm going to drag that underneath the layer that's above it, and I'm going to drop that opacity even more. Now I got myself a triple "S" kind of look. And if you want to go in and change stuff, like you can--you can go into the effects tools and add colors to it, if you want. For instance, if I wanted to, you know, add like a satin look to it and make it a little darker, I can do that. As you can see, I just did. And maybe even go to this one and add a satin as well, make it a little darker. And now you've got yourself something like a multiple "S", and kind of like a lighting bolt/Superman-type look, and it's kind of a neat deal, and it's real simple to do. All you're doing is copying the layer and then adding a layer mask. Real easy, real simple, work with your creativity, and you can actually just create something from nothing, like I just did right here. Thanks for listening. "