Using Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020
Ben Willmore
Lessons
Introduction To Adobe Photoshop
04:05 2Bridge vs. Lightroom
06:39 3Tour of Photoshop Interface
18:21 4Overview of Bridge Workspace
07:42 5Overview of Lightroom Workspace
11:21 6Lightroom Preferences - Saving Documents
08:19 7How To Use Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop 2020
05:10 8Overview of Basic Adjustment Sliders
13:09Developing Raw Images
30:33 10Editing with the Effects and HLS Tabs
09:12 11How to Save Images
03:37 12Using the Transform Tool
04:48 13Making Selections in Adobe Photoshop 2020
06:03 14Selection Tools
05:55 15Combining Selection Tools
07:37 16Using Automated Selection Tools
17:34 17Quick Mask Mode
05:07 18Select Menu Essentials
21:28 19Using Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020
13:00 20Align Active Layers
07:29 21Creating a New Layer
06:15 22Creating a Clipping Mask
03:02 23Using Effects on Layers
11:24 24Using Adjustment Layers
16:44 25Using the Shape Tool
04:39 26Create a Layer Mask Using the Selection Tool
04:39 27Masking Multiple Images Together
15:15 28Using Layer Masks to Remove People
10:50 29Using Layer Masks to Replace Sky
10:04 30Adding Texture to Images
09:11 31Layering to Create Realistic Depth
05:35 32Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020
05:29 33Optimizing Grayscale with Levels
10:59 34Adjusting Levels with a Histogram
03:37 35Understanding Curves
06:18 36Editing an Image Using Curves
18:41 37Editing with Shadows/Highlights Adjustment
07:19 38Dodge and Burn Using Quick Mask Mode
07:14 39Editing with Blending Modes
08:04 40Color Theory
05:59 41Curves for Color
16:52 42Hue and Saturation Adjustments
08:59 43Isolating Colors Using Hue/Saturation Adjustment
13:33 44Match Colors Using Numbers
16:59 45Adjusting Skin Tones
05:25 46Retouching Essentials In Adobe Camera Raw
10:52 47Retouching with the Spot Healing Brush
07:53 48Retouching with the Clone Stamp
06:51 49Retouching with the Healing Brush
04:34 50Retouching Using Multiple Retouching Tools
13:07 51Extending an Edge with Content Aware
03:42 52Clone Between Documents
13:19 53Crop Tool
10:07 54Frame Tool
02:59 55Eye Dropper and Color Sampler Tools
08:14 56Paint Brush Tools
13:33 57History Brush Tool
06:27 58Eraser and Gradient Tools
03:06 59Brush Flow and Opacity Settings
04:17 60Blur and Shape Tools
11:06 61Dissolve Mode
09:24 62Multiply Mode
15:29 63Screen Mode
14:08 64Hard Light Mode
14:54 65Hue, Saturation, and Color Modes
11:31 66Smart Filters
11:32 67High Pass Filter
13:40 68Blur Filter
05:59 69Filter Gallery
07:42 70Adaptive Wide Angle Filter
04:43 71Combing Filters and Features
04:45 72Select and Mask
20:04 73Manually Select and Mask
08:08 74Creating a Clean Background
21:19 75Changing the Background
13:34 76Smart Object Overview
08:37 77Nested Smart Objects
09:55 78Scale and Warp Smart Objects
09:08 79Replace Contents
06:55 80Raw Smart Objects
10:20 81Multiple Instances of a Smart Object
12:59 82Creating a Mockup Using Smart Objects
05:42 83Panoramas
13:15 84HDR
11:20 85Focus Stacking
04:02 86Time-lapse
11:18 87Light Painting Composite
08:05 88Remove Moire Patterns
06:11 89Remove Similar Objects At Once
09:52 90Remove Objects Across an Entire Image
05:46 91Replace a Repeating Pattern
06:50 92Clone from Multiple Areas Using the Clone Source Panel
10:27 93Remove an Object with a Complex Background
07:49 94Frequency Separation to Remove Staining and Blemishes
12:27 95Warping
11:03 96Liquify
14:02 97Puppet Warp
12:52 98Displacement Map
10:36 99Polar Coordinates
07:19 100Organize Your Layers
11:02 101Layer Styles: Bevel and Emboss
02:59 102Layer Style: Knockout Deep
12:34 103Blending Options: Blend if
13:18 104Blending Options: Colorize Black and White Image
06:27 105Layer Comps
08:30 106Black-Only Shadows
06:07 107Create a Content Aware Fill Action
08:46 108Create a Desaturate Edges Action
07:42 109Create an Antique Color Action
13:52 110Create a Contour Map Action
10:20 111Faux Sunset Action
07:20 112Photo Credit Action
05:54 113Create Sharable Actions
07:31 114Common Troubleshooting Issues Part 1
10:23 115Common Troubleshooting Issues Part 2
07:57 116Image Compatibility with Lightroom
03:29 117Scratch Disk Is Full
06:02 118Preview Thumbnail
02:10Lesson Info
Using Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020
And now it's time to turn our attention to layers layers of one of the fundamental features and photo shop where if you don't know layers, you really don't know Futter shop. And so let's jump into photo shop and look at the essentials for layers. If you end up getting the full complete guide, we'll eventually have another session, which will be on advanced layers, and that's well get in even deeper. But for now, let's look at the basics of layers in Photoshopped. I'm gonna start by creating a brand new empty document to start to construct a more complex image from I'll go to the file menu and choose new, and I'll go over here to a print preview or a preset, and I think I'll make this maybe about seven by five inch image. Choose, create, and then we'll just zoom up so it fills the majority of our screen. When you first start out in the Layers panel, which is on the left side of my screen at the moment, you're going to start off with a background layer, and it's only the things that appe...
ar above the background layer that are actually considered to be layers. The background itself is not truly a layer I can control how large the thumbnail images will be in the layers panel by right clicking in this empty area below the layers. So right now, if I press my right mouse button Warren Mac, if you don't have to must buttons control click in this area, you can choose how large these are going to be. So I'm gonna choose large just to make these easier for you to see. And you could do that any time you like by right clicking in this empty area or going to the side menu of the layers panel and you'll also find it here under panel options. Then I'm gonna go to bridge and let's look at various ways where I can get an image into a layer in photo shop. So I'm gonna open an image here, starting in bridge, just double clicking. The first thing I could do is copy this image. Now, copy will be grayed out because it doesn't know how much of the image I want a copy. So we'll first go to the select menu and select all. Then I can come up here and copy this when I copy it. The entirety of what had selected is being held in what's known as the clipboard. And so I can close this original image. And now I'm back into the document we had before, and I'm just gonna paste it when I paste. Watch what happens in the layers panel. There's our first layer now. The size of the document is based on the size of the original document. It looks at the width and height of the image in pixels, and then it puts that many pixels into this document. And if this document happened to have, ah, skinnier with or a shorter height, it'll filmore than the document itself. But let's look at other methods we could use for getting images into this document. I'll return to bridge and open another picture. This time, I'm going to use the move tool the move to us what you used to reposition layers. It's the top tool in our layers panel, and I'm just gonna click anywhere within this document. Then, with my mouse button held down, I'm gonna move my mouse over to the other tab. The tab for the document I created earlier. And then I'm gonna move my mouse into this document before I let go. A lot of people will end up messing up and letting go where their mouth is still on top of the tab for this document, and then nothing will happen. But I'm gonna let go right now. And so now we've moved that second image over here, so so far, we could copy and paste, or we could drag and drop. I'm gonna close the other document, the one that I just dragged over. It's the second tab that's here. We'll just hit the little X that's there to get rid of it. Let's go back to bridge. Now. There are other ways where it could be very useful to get images between bridge and photo shop. And that is I'm gonna click on the top edge of the bridge window and just pull it down like this so I can see what's behind bridge. Then I'll make my thumbnails in here a little smaller. And now if I want to get one of these images over to the other document, I'm just going to click on it here in drag up there to the Photoshopped document I can see behind Let go now. When I do that, it's does a couple things differently. The first thing it does is it scales down the image to make sure it fits within this document. And if I wanted to be even smaller than that, I can grab these corner handles in, pull a man to decide exactly how big it like that image to be. I can click within the image itself and reposition it. And then when it's the right size in the right position, I press the returner in Tricky. Now, if I want to get the other images to be sized and positioned, all I need to do is go over here in my layers panel, click on a different layer and then go to the edit menu in about halfway down. The menu is a choice called free transform. When I choose free transform, I get little handles on the corners of my picture, and if that picture extends beyond the edge of this document, I might need to scroll down to actually see ah, the handles. But there's a trick. There's a keyboard shortcut that usually means fit within window and it usually would cause the entire document you're working on to fit within your screen. But when you're transforming something, it thinks about the transformation you're performing. So if I come up here to my view menu and choose fit on screen or I take command zero, which is what I usually do, controls their own windows, it will scale it down until I can see those transformation handles. And then I can scale this down in reposition at now if I typed command zero. It's thinking about the document because the picture fits within it, and I'm just going to scale this until it's about approximately the same height as the other layer. Then to finish, I'm gonna press returner enter on my keyboard. I'll go to the next layer down again. I could go to the edit menu and choose for you. Transform where That's something I used so often that I usually use the keyboard shortcut, which is command t for transform control tm windows. So I'm gonna type that command t again. This image is taller than the document that I'm working with, so if I want to zoom out until I can see the little handles to pull on Aiken Type command zero that's controls their own windows. And when I move this around commands or to zoom up on the document, if I get this to line up with something else in the document, you'll see some pink lines appearing. And it's showing me what's lining up in this case, the bottom of this image or this layer with the images to left of it. If I move it up now, it's vertically centered on both images that it go, it's to the left of it. And if I get up here, it's now lining up with the top edges of them. Then I'll grab the corner here in Recife. But what if I want to get a bunch of images into this document? Well, then I can come over here to bridge and just select more than one that won't select all these, and then just drag all of them over there. And if we try to do that, the first time brings in one image. And since I dragged and dropped it, it makes sure that that image fits within this document, so there's no need to type command zero to zoom out. I can reposition this wherever I find it useful. And then I press returner entered indicate I'm done in. Since I dragged more than one image over it instantly switches to the second image so I can start working with it. And I'm going to start a new row of pictures down here near the bottom of my screen. Press returner enter. And the next image comes in help make that fill the middle of my screen returner enter and the next one comes in F ever decide that I don't want to continue bringing mawr images in. Maybe I accidentally selected 200 pictures. Then I could always press the escape key and that would cancel. But here I want all these images so I will just allow them to be placed and scaled down. I wish it would show me guides when I'm transforming to let me know that this picture is the same height as the others. But that doesn't usually happen to squirrel around here. I have a track pad built into my laptop and I'm using two fingers on my track pad to scroll around. Looks like we have Hopefully, this is the last image. Otherwise, I'll end up hitting escape because I don't need Mawr images than this. All right, that was the last image, all right, so we have a bunch of layers now. You should know that the layers that I dragged over from Bridge, you remember that it automatically transformed them in automatically made sure it fit within the document was working on. But it also did one other thing. And that is, if you look at my layers panel, you'll see a bunch of layers here. But some of them have a special icon in the lower right, This icon here, that's something we're going to talk about. If you watch another lesson, I'm going to record. That's on advanced layers, and that indicates that that layer is special. It's what's known as a smart object, but that's beyond the scope of this particular class. Just know that when you drag from bridge, it does do one other thing, and it does something related to what's known as a smart object. All right, now let's organize these images in here. If I come in here and just click on an image I make that layer active, then I can use the move Tool the tool. Me very top of my tool panel to reposition things. Uh, and with default settings and Photoshopped, it's going to automatically switch which layer is active at the time I click. So watch my layers panel. I noticed the top most layer is currently active, and when I click right here, notice it changed and it changed the layer that contained the picture that was underneath my mouse. If I click on the next image the left, it'll automatically switch to layer that is contained within, and so I can very quickly switch between layers. For me personally, I do not like that. It does that. That's a change that Adobe made to Futter shop recently. And it's something where it messes me up quite a bit, because oftentimes I can have a layer that might contain a tiny object that I want to move. And I don't wanna have to click exactly where that object resides to prevent it from switching to a different layer. And so I wanted to not automatically switch layers unless I do something to tell it to switch layers. So let me show you how to make that change, and so therefore, you can have your photo shop set up similarly to mind. Ah, when the move tool is active, will come up to the top of my screen to the options bar. There's a check box right here called Auto Select in four decades in Photoshop that was turned off. But then recently well, not all that recently. A few years ago, Adobe decided to change the default, and they defaulted it to being turned on. So I'm gonna have that turned off when I used photo shop. And what that means when it's off is that it doesn't matter where I click on my screen. It will not change which layer is currently active. So if you look in my layers panel, you'll see that the layer that is currently active is a layer that is located near the upper left of the document. It happens to be the one that contains this picture, and it doesn't matter where I click on my screen. That's the layer that's active. And if I want a different layer to be active, I need to manually change it here in the layers panel. I'll show you ways of automatically changing which layer is active. And I think it will be very convenient for you. But the main thing is it will never change layers unexpectedly on you.
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Noel Ice
I am an avid reader of photoshop books, and an avid watcher of photoshop tutorials. I have attended (internet) several hundred of presentations. In the course of this endeavor, I have found my own favorite photoshop websites and instructors. Creative Live is probably the bargain out there as well as among the top three internet course sites. I have to say with great enthusiasm that the best Photoshop instructor is Ben Willmore. There are many great ones, but truly, he is the best I have come across, and, as indicated above, I have watched literally 100s of tutorials on Photoshop. I have seen all of Ben's courses, I think, and among them, this one is the best by far, and that is saying a lot, because that makes this course the best course on Photoshop to be found anywhere. I am going back and watching it twice. Not only is it comprehensive, but Ben is so familiar with his subject that he is able to explain it like no other. This is crème de la crème of Photoshop classes. I have been wanting to write this review for some time because I have been so thoroughly impressed with everything about this class!
ford smith
Highly recommended if you want to take your Photoshop skills to the next level. Ben Willmore is clear, concise, and professional. He also has a good speaking voice that is not distracting but also keeps you engaged. Lastly, I would recommend that as you become more advanced, increasing the speed of the video (one of the options given on the menu)...especially if you've gone through the course once before and maybe want to watch it again. The double speed is very efficient as you become more advanced in Photoshop. Thanks for the help Ben!
a Creativelive Student
Wow. I cannot communicate the value of this course!! The true value in this course is how the instructor identifies workflows you'll need before you'll ever realize it, repeats important information without it becoming annoying, and explains the "why" behind the techniques so well that even if you forget the exact method, you can figure it out via the principles learned. Excellent value, excellent material, excellent instructor!!!
Student Work
Related Classes
Adobe Photoshop