Making any kind of a change to an image, such as increasing the size of a font on a heading, or removing a part of an image is a major undertaking, if everything is one flat image. With layers, it just takes a couple of clicks to make such changes. In Photoshop, a layer is always transparent until you put something on it i.e. each layer remains transparent, where no image data appears and other layers will show through.

In This Chapter:

Understanding Layers

A layer is always transparent until you put something on it. Without layers everything was like one flat image and was akin to making a hole if you were to cut and move an object with a pair of scissors.

Working with Layers

You can create, delete, rename, duplicate, change colors and do many more interesting things with the help of Photoshop.

Changing Layer Order and Hiding Layers

You can change the layer order by just clicking and dragging the layer in layer palette. Photoshop also helps you hide layers temporarily without deleting them. This feature helps in great artistic experimentation since you can include as many layers as you want and display only those that you want.

Multiple Layers

Photoshop helps you save time by allowing you to work with multiple layers at once.

Managing Layers

Photoshop helps you in Managing layers in an organized manner to be most effective in managing your projects. Empty layers do not take any space and it is only the content in the layers that adds to the file size.