Working With Layoring Options

Backgrounds and Layers

Layering, now that's a big topic, so I'm going to breeze through it quickly and refer any serious student to the "Adobe Design 5.0, Classroom in a Book," mentioned elsewhere in this web site. Basically, when you open a paintshop window, you are seeing the background layer. You can work on this layer directly, but it is best to put only the most general elements of a design here.

Be careful of the latter option until you are sure you are finished with your design. You can, however, temporarily link layers together, and you can hide layers so that you don't see them when you are working on another layer. You can, also, move items on one layer around while leaving items on other layers in place.

Working With The Image

When I set up the images on this web-site, I made sure the text was always on it's own layer. In the painting, "Take Adobe Photoshop To The Beach," I played around with the positioning of the text, its size, its font, its spacing, and its color an awful lot, never affecting the painting underneath. Likewise, I could switch to my painting and change the color of the waves, as well as the ins and outs of the beach, to accommodate a dark type face. Layers take some getting used to, but they open up a vast area of control and potential to add depth and detail to graphic art.