Show / Hide / Copy

To make any changes to a layer, we must first select it.
To select it, click on the Layer in the “Layer palette”.
Make your changes then, these only apply to the selected layer, not to the other layers.

To make the contents of a layer visible or invisible, click the eye icon on the left of the layer.
To show only the contents of one layer, hold the Alt key on your keyboard while you click the eye icon of that layer.
To copy a layer click and drag the layer to the “New Layer” in the Layer palette.

For changing the stacking order of a layer, click and drag the layer in the Layers palette to the desired location.
This we had already seen in the previous lesson.

To copy a layer to a new or different file, right-click on the layer and choose “Duplicate Layer” from the dropdown menu. In the dialog that opens you give a name for the layer and make a choice in the “Destination” (Destination).

Linking Layers (link layer)

When we have two or more layers linked, we can move or copy all of these together.
In order to link layers, select the layers and click the “Link Layers” button at the bottom of the Layer palette.

To undo this link, click again on the “Link Layers” button

Move Layers Contents

To move the contents of a layer, first select the layer, click the Move tool in the toolbox.
Click and drag the contents of the layer to the place you want.

Locking Layers

We can fully or partially lock layers to protect the contents.
When a layer is locked, a lock icon appears at the right of the layer name.
When it is fully locked, this icon is black, if it is partly locked, then it is gray.

We have four different choices to lock:

• Lock transparent pixels: This will prevent any changes to happen to the transparent part of the layer.
• Lock Image Pixels: This will prevent the changing of pixels with the drawing tools.
• Lock Position: This will prevent the pixels from moving.
• Lock All

To lock a layer fully or partially, you first select the layer and then make your choice from the four different options.
To unlock a layer, click the same icon again.

Convert Vector Layers to pixel layers

Because we can not use drawing tools and filters with vector layers, we must first convert them to pixel layers.
Suppose we use the Custom Shape Tool from the toolbox to draw a heart.
This creates a new vector image with its own layer.
This layer consists of two parts.
You have the fill color and you have the mask.
The mask filters out the color (More about masks in a subsequent lesson).

To edit this layer, we must first convert it to a pixel layer.
Select the layer and click “Layer” – “Rasterize” – “Layer” in the menu bar.

As you can see in the picture above, our layer is now changed to a raster layer (pixel layer) and we can edit it.

Merge Layers

When we are ready to work with our layers, we can merge them to reduce the size of the image.
When we merge layers, the data of the lower layers that are overlapped, are replaced by the data in the upper layers. All transparent areas in the merged layers remain transparent.

To merge layers, choose Layers from the menu bar and pick your choice from the options:
Merge Visible: all visible layers are merged.
Merge down: adds the selected plus all underlying layers together.
Flatten image: add all the layers together to Background layer.

Before I continue with Layers, I will first guide you in Masks and Channels (Channels and Masks).

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