Duration: 5:13

5,264 views

11

Check out Bas Rutten's Liver Shot on MMA Surge: http://bit.ly/MMASurgeEp1
Mahalo expert Gene Shaw gives a comprehensive Photoshop layer menu tutorial.
http://www.gargoyle1.com/

The Importance of Layers
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Layers will play a crucial role both in photographic manipulation as well as illustration. Layers are a great way of adding or removing parts of an image in a non-destructive manner. 

Add a New Layer
---------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Go to Layer at the top of the screen, choose the New sub-menu and then select what you'd like to add. You can group layers here or duplicate the background. Duplicate Layer will make a copy of whichever layer you've selected. 
2. Further down the Layer menu, you will find New Fill Layer and New Adjustment Layer, Smart Objects and Video Layers. A Smart Object is a protected layer. Destructive editing is what happens when you alter an image and then save over the original. Non-destructive editing includes all alterations that take place while leaving the original image intact. 
A Smart Object will keep whatever information is inside it as the original. This way, you can Transform (manipulate) a Smart Object, and this alteration will be applied to the Smart Object itself while not affecting the original. 

One helpful new feature is that Video Layers can be imported, as well. Once you choose a video to import, you can open the Animation Window and adjust the timeline to the exact frame you would like to display. 

Arranging Layers
---------------------------------------------------------------------

After working in Photoshop for an extended period of time, you will find yourself with more image layers than you can probably count. Organizing these layers in a logical fashion will save you ample amounts of time whether you are working solo, collaborating with a partner, or returning to an old project years later. 
You will arrange layers into Groups (folders). Just remember that layers on top will visually cover the layers beneath them. If you have several titles with several images on the same page, make sure all the titles remain visible above all of the images before you group them together in a folder above the images. 

1. You can move layers around by dragging them in the Layers Panel or the Arrange Command in the
Layer Menu. You can also "link" layers, which essentially locks layers together, so if you move one layer, all linked layers move as well. 
2. Additionally, Merge Layers will combine several layers into one. Merge Images and Flatten Images do virtually the same thing. They take all the layers in your image and combine them into a single layer. The only real difference is that Flatten Image will always save the compressed image as the background layer. 

Masks
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Masks are based on whatever area you select over the image. Layer Masks are raster-based, which means their quality will vary based on your resolution and you can change them by painting and erasing in your mask area. Vector Masks operate independent of resolution. These masks are created and edited with a pen tool. 

Read more by visiting our page at:
http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-layer-menu/