This week, thanks to our intern Neha, we’re going to start a series of tutorial for beginners focused on basics photoshop tasks to help you understand the environment you’re working into and get over the common: “It’s too complicated for me” attitude! Let’s start talking about layers and background.
The purpose of layers is to separate specific kind of edits to make life easier. On the plus side, you don’t destroy your image in fact you work on copies of your original photo.
This week, thanks to our intern Neha, we’re going to start a series of tutorial for beginners focused on basics photoshop tasks to help you understand the environment you’re working into and get over the common: “It’s too complicated for me” attitude! Let’s start talking about layers and background.
The purpose of layers is to separate specific kind of edits to make life easier. On the plus side, you don’t destroy your image in fact you work on copies of your original photo.
Creating a new layer
Generally, when you open up Photoshop the layers panel will be open. If not, the layer button is on the top of Photoshop and just click on new layer.
Which ever layer has been selected means you will be working on that layer so whatever edits or changes you make will only affect that particular layer.
The eye which appears next to the layer is used as a ‘visibility’ icon. To make something invisible just click on the eye and do the same to make it visible.
The background in the image above has been locked which indicates the particular layer will be the background and any layers added will be placed on top of our background layer.
Above, I created a new layer by click on the new layer button on the bottom.
The image above is our guide for layers which allows us to do various things such as delete layers, create layers, add vector masks or create groups for layers to make life easier in general.
Duplicating a layer
In this section, the layers of an image can be duplicated through easy ways! First off, our classic method of copy and paste which everyone loves!
Select the desired layer, ctrl c and then ctrl v. Voila! Your layer is now duplicated!
Second method, basically select the layer you want to duplicate, click the desired layer and press ctrl and j and then drag out the layer.
Last method, right click on your layer and it will give you the option to duplicate layer.
Then you can rename your layer.
Making a group of layers
Sometimes you want to group similar things into groups to make your life easier.
Click on the folder button below which allows you to create a group. Rename your group so it is easier for you to navigate through all your layers.
Drag the layer and place it into the group.
When a layer is in a group, you can see that it’s appearance is different. It appears under the group and is shifted a little to the right.
Converting background into layer
Hold down alt and double click on ‘background’. It will automatically be converted into a background.
Another way of doing it is holding down control and clicking on background.
These options will come up, select on ‘layer from background’ and your background is now converted into a layer!
Changing the order of layers
You can restack your layers on the toolbar and this will change the layers on your artboard.
Here is an example of how restacking your layers can be beneficial. I filled the background to be black and wrote a text in purple.
Notice that the text layer is on top of the background, if I placed the text to be under the background it would not be visible.
Working with layer groups
Creating a new layer group is easy so you can group all the similar objects together and everything is more organized.
You can see that all the ‘text’ layers are placed in the text group so any change I make to the group will be applied to all the three layers in the group.
Deleting individual layers
Sometimes you may want to get rid of a particular layer and deleting it is very simple. Right click on the layer you want to delete and click on delete layer. This will delete the particular layer selected.
Hiding and showing layers
When you want to know what your design looks like without a particular layer, there is a simple way of doing it without having to delete your layer.
Next to the layer there is an image of an ‘eye’. This is used to show and hide a particular layer.
I clicked on the eye beside text 2 and you can see on my artboard the text actually disappeared. Click again on the eye and your layer will appear.
Moving layer content
To move content you must always make sure your layer is selected and the arrow on the top of the toolbar is also selected. If your layer isn’t selected, it may move other layers which can mess up your design.
Merging layers
Sometimes when you want to make changes to anything, merging layers can mean that any change you make will be applicable to the ‘merged’ layers.
To merge layers, you must select more than one so the function is applicable.
I selected the ‘text’ group and merged it. So now when I make any changes to the group, it is applied to all of the layers.
My ‘text’ group has now changed into one layer called texts. For example, I will hide the text layer and observe what happens on the artboard.
All the layers have now disappeared because they’ve been merged into one layer.
Follow our next tutorial about photoshop basics out soon.
If you’re still stuck or you want to get to the next level, try one of our courses!
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