The Power (and ease) of Layers in Photoshop

[Diane Miller]

Several people have expressed an interest in learning more about Layers in Photoshop. I've written a tutorial that some folks may find useful. As it's a bit long to put in a frame here, you can download it as a PDF.

http://www.dianedmiller.com/00tutorials/Layers-Basics.pdf

Hope it's helpful, and as, as with images, C&C always welcome, along with questions.

(OK -- the picture is just stuck in as a teaser, to get your attention in the forum contents list!)

[Don Railton]

Hi Diane, The image worked perfectly... just read your tutorial, thanks very much its very interesting..

DON

[Sandy Witvoet]

Image sure got my attention! Read thru the tutorial... EXCELLENT! I'll be printing it off and hope to practice with it this weekend! SO much better than any of the books. Thanks for taking time to do this and for sharing your expertise with us!

[Sandy Witvoet]

Image sure got my attention! Read thru the tutorial... EXCELLENT! I'll be printing it off and hope to practice with it this weekend! SO much better than any of the books. Thanks for taking time to do this and for sharing your expertise with us!

[Diane Miller]

Thanks! I'm sure some things could be written more clearly so shoot with questions (email is easier) and I'll revise as needed.

[Diane Miller]

Thanks! I'm sure some things could be written more clearly so shoot with questions (email is easier) and I'll revise as needed.

[Don Nelson]

Diane
You might also wish to include the power of linking layers. You touch on it very briefly, but its pretty useful if you have created a set of layers that modify (say adjustment layers) and now want to move that object by grabbing and moving it. It you try this, the other modifier layers won't move with it. By linking a group of layers together, when you grab the item and move it, all the layers move in unison. So linking is very useful beyond simply linking to the background layer, and you don't have to link to the background layer.
Keep up the good work.
regards
Don

[Diane Miller]

Good thing to add -- trying to stay simple and cover all the bases isn't easy! So much good stuff in PS.

I just now found your reply while out and about on my iPhone and hope I can remember to add it to the next draft when I'm back at the computer.

[Anette Mossbacher]

I stumbled over this, sure it was the image :)
Thanks so much for your work with this. Have to agree, much better than in those books you can buy.

Thank you

Ciao Anette

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Anette! (Of course, the picture WAS done with layers...)

[Luis Paez]

Excellent!!!! Thanks so much for your time and work.

[Diane Miller]

You're all welcome! There is so much to know with this stuff and we weren't born knowing it.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Good stuff, Diane! Thanks for taking the time to work on this:cheers:

[Diane Miller]

I'm having trouble getting the link here to update to a new version of this tutorial. I am now creating some new tutorials and revising some old ones that are no longer available from their previous source. They will be listed on my web site and downloadable there as PDFs.

See the link below.

(http://www.dianedmiller.com/00tutorials/)

[Valerio Tarone]

Diane thank for your article, i had printed it to read it better. I'm completely new to Photoshop as I used Nikon Capture before. So I have tro study.....I read some tutorials about astro photography, if I well understand stacking is used also to reduce noise. Please answer..Valerio

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Valerio! If you have a still subject you can shoot several exposures and stack them to reduce noise. Of course they need to align perfectly, and you set them to a blending mode -- sorry but just now I don't remember which one. (Or you can successively reduce opacity according to a formula that you can find online. (No time to check on it now -- I can get back to you if you can't find it.) I haven't done that in years for regular photography but it is common for astrophotography using more sophisticated methods. The simplest is to stack (and align) in PS, select all layers and convert to smart object. The go to Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode > Median. (The astro processing programs do a similar thing way behind the scenes.)

There is a lot of information online and some of it is good...

[Valerio Tarone]

Diane,thank you. In any way it's difficult for me do astro or night photography simply because in Italy there are few suitable places. I did one last august, it'sprentable because it's too dark. Deserts are good places..I've got the PScS I don't find 'syncronise' in PSc5 the tutorial says first to do 'syncronize'. cherio,by, happy new year!

[Valerio Tarone]

Diane a mistake: the photo it isn't presentable because...

[Diane Miller]

Re Pane 17 above: There is nothing in this tutorial about synchronizing -- that is in Lightroom.