Creating layers in Photoshop

Layers give you a way of stacking portions of an image — overlay style — on top of one another so that you can work on individual pieces separately. Then, when you’re satisfied with your changes, you can combine the changes into a final image.

The Photoshop Layers feature is so useful it’s hard to imagine that it hasn’t always been present in Photoshop. (Thank your lucky stars if you didn’t have to use versions of Photoshop that preceded version 3.0.) Those of us who worked with Photoshop 2.5 and earlier still wake up from nightmares in which a floating selection (the predecessor to the layer feature) permanently merged with the background because of an ill-timed sneeze.

The Layer menu in Photoshop lets you create new and duplicate layers, delete one or several layers, change layer properties (such as a layer’s name), or add special features, such as drop shadows or beveled edges, to objects in a layer. You can also create special kinds of layers to make adjustments or mask out portions of an image. The menu has selections for changing the order of the layers (moving a specific layer to the front or top of the stack, and so on) and grouping layers together so that you can treat them as a set.

You also can merge layers down, combine them with all other visible layers, or flatten them into one single-layer image. Although merging your layers makes the file smaller, flattening is irreversible after you close the file. It’s always a good idea to store an unflattened version of a file in case you want to make more changes later on.

Photoshop has two key layer facilities, the Layer menu and the Layers palette. Some of their functions are duplicated, but some are not, so make sure you’re using both of them. The latest member of the layers family is the Layer Comps palette. This palette enables you to capture different versions of your document by recording the configuration of your layers at a point in time.