Basic Techniques For Organizing Layers In Photoshop For Better Workflow – Layers are a powerful tool in Photoshop and one of the main strengths of this program over Lightroom.
But the concept of layers can be difficult to grasp… so I’ve put together this comprehensive (but easy to follow) guide that explains what layers are and how they work to enhance your photos.
Basic Techniques For Organizing Layers In Photoshop For Better Workflow
For landscape photography, Photoshop has four basic building blocks (one of which is layers) on which all processing techniques are based.
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Once you understand how layers work, techniques that seem more advanced than your skills (exposure blending, sky shifting, focus stacking, color grading, and more) quickly make sense.
Layers are very simple to understand…it just requires a small change to the way you work in Photoshop; Everyone has a different perspective and eventually it “clicks”. In this lesson I’ll show you how to do this.
I’ve been working with Photoshop since 2006, so I can tell you this with great confidence: Once you know how layers work in Photoshop, you’re already ahead of the learning curve. Many of the techniques in Photoshop are based on the non-destructive workflow that layers can provide… which is why using layers is essential if you want to create high-quality and stunning landscape photos.
If you prefer to learn visually (I highly recommend Photoshop), you can download my free video course below. This five-part course includes practice files and a helpful PDF cheat sheet; so you can master the layers in no time.
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In the simplest and most basic way possible: Layers allow you to isolate any changes you make to your photo. It doesn’t protect your photo from permanent changes, but it does allow you to make changes to your settings regardless of the image.
You can move layers, change their appearance, remove or hide them, add another layer… and that’s just the beginning. They give you incredibly precise control over your process that isn’t possible with simple programs like Lightroom. This means your settings will have fewer surprises and unwanted side effects; so you can make easier (and more accurate) changes to your image.
The layers palette is now the control center for your layers, as shown in the screenshot below. This is where you will place all your layers and make changes to your layers. Currently there is only one layer in the palette, but we will be adding additional layers soon.
If for some reason the Layers palette is not visible, go to the top menu and click Windows > Layers or press F7 on your keyboard.
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When you open an image sent directly or from Lightroom in Photoshop, your photo is always on its own separate layer… as you can see in the screenshot above, this is the first layer in your palette.
The word “layers” can be taken literally: it means to layer or “stack” your adjustments above or below your photo, which is your base layer. How your image looks depends on the opacity or transparency of these layers and how they interact with each other.
The first step to visualize how this works is to add an adjustment layer on top of our photo. Don’t worry about what adjustment layers are if you’re not familiar with them; First, focus on understanding the concept of layers.
To add a new black and white adjustment layer, go to the bottom of your layers palette and click on the adjustment layer icon (as shown in the screenshot below).
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You can see that we now have two separate layers: the bottom is the original layer containing our photo, and the top layer is a new black and white adjustment layer. This special layer applies a black and white “filter”, giving the image a black and white appearance.
However, since this adjustment is on a separate layer, the black and white conversion is not permanent. I can remove, hide or adjust this black and white setting at any time while maintaining full access to the original photo.
Now if I click and drag this black and white adjustment layer under my photo layer, you can see that the effect is now gone and we’re looking at the original image. The photo layer now completely blocks the black and white adjustment effect as it is the top layer in the Layers palette, hiding everything below it.
The best analogy I can think of for layers is to imagine each layer is a piece of glass that can be stacked on top of each other. You can paint this piece of glass, move it, pick it up and put it back… but it’s completely independent of any other piece of glass (or layers).
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The layer you see in the layers palette is completely covered by an image, so if you think about the “glass” analogy… what we’re doing here is “gluing” the entire photo onto this piece of glass. Nothing can be seen through or through the glass as it is completely covered with film. So when we put that layer under the photo layer, the black and white adjustment disappeared.
Let’s add another layer to the image, this time it will be an empty layer. If you go to the bottom of your layers palette, click on the “Create New Layer” icon, which will add a blank layer above our image layer.
So even though we can look at the palette here and say we have a new layer, our image looks the same; Nothing has changed. Because there is no content added to our new layer yet. In other words, it is completely empty.
This is also reflected in the new layer thumbnail I pointed out in the screenshot above; It is quite transparent.
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Let’s go back to the glass analogy: It’s like putting a completely transparent piece of glass over our photo. Since it is 100% transparent, the image is the same.
So let’s draw this layer (or piece of glass) to show in more detail how the layers interact with each other.
Select your Paint Bucket tool in the Tools palette and make sure your Foreground is set to black. Click once and select the new empty layer (the correctly selected layer will be highlighted in light gray in the layers palette, as seen in the screenshot below).
It’s very important to make sure the correct layer is selected and active… because if you accidentally switch to another layer, the results will not be what you expect. Checking your active layer will soon become second nature, so don’t despair if you forget.
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Now that my empty layer is selected and active, I’ll click once to fill the canvas with black.
Going back to the glass analogy: a layer below us – or a piece of glass – contains a photo glued to it. Then we glued a new piece of clear glass on top and covered it completely with black paint.
This new black overlay layer is 100% independent of the photo layer below: I can take this layer (or piece of glass) and move it around, reduce transparency, move it around… but it will always stand out in my photo. . It’s not up to him in any way.
How to deal with your layers… The next topic is how to move, rearrange, delete and replace your layers. These are important concepts because they allow you to customize layers to fit the content of your image.
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The first thing I’ll do is rename the layer so it’s ready. When you start adding multiple layers to your image, it’s easy to lose track of what those layers are doing… especially when you revisit old work. Your potential customers will thank you for taking a few extra seconds to rename your layers as simply and clearly as possible.
All you have to do is double click on the layer name in the palette and it will become a text area. It’s labeled Layer 1 by default because it’s the first layer we add to the image.
You can usually tell what a layer is doing to your image by looking at the thumbnail. As you can see above, the thumbnail for this layer is completely black… which mirrors what you see on the canvas. However, some settings don’t display their changes in the thumbnail… so it’s worth renaming your layers to keep track of your progress.
Another thing you can do with your layers is add them to a group that acts like a folder on your computer. This allows you to group similar layers together and collapse them, so you can clear your palette and do less work
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