Lessons

Lesson Info

The Adobe Photoshop Interface - Layers and Blending

Layers is the core foundation of photo shop it's why I get into it right away there's a lot of theirs filters, there's tools, there's all these things layers is really the core of what we're going to do here, so let me go ahead and open up a couple of images here and we're going to we're going to dive into layers, so open up three different photos so I've got golfer I've got this golf logo, I've got another golfer ok, so I've got three images. What I want to do is let's just talk a little bit about what a layer is if you look over and your layers panel, you'll see it over there every layer comes with a background like our every image comes with a background later that's first thing that pops up by creating new document commander control and new document has a background later everything's got a background layer to it the way to think of layers is think of it as you're looking top down think of saying this was an eight by ten photo, okay that's a layer say had another eight by ten photo...

and I put it over that it's another layer we're going to do that exact concept inside of photos show, so I'll take it golfer to and what I'm gonna do is selected, so I'll go to select all selects the whole thing endit copy which, by the way, I'm not going to do this anymore. Copy is the universal keyboard shortcut commander control see it's, not a photo shop it's an every other program you use it. If you use a computer, you should know that one s o commander control see the copy and then I'll go over to the other golfer image, and then again, I'll paste and I'm not going to come to the menu each time, but commander control v and pasted in. So what just happened? Think of go back to a simple example everybody's word or some kind of word process user email program. You have text in one window and you have text in another window and you want a copy and move it so you select it. Copy, go the other window pasted same exact concept of what just happened here. We selected her image, we copied it would go the other image, we paste it. So what I just did was add another layer added a layer on top of this now have background and I have layer one on top. If you think of our analogy, we're on top looking down at this, why don't I see that that golfer in the background anymore because he's covered by the layer that's on top of it all right, if you take that to a real world that's I had an eight to eight by ten photo stack and I took one, and I split it aside. I use the move tool for this now I can see it wherever I slid to decide. I see what's below it. So think of your layers as just this stack that gets on top of each other you're only going to see the top most layer until you do something to until you change it so that you see through it in a different way. So we've got our we've got our two layers together. Let's go and let's, take another one here again. I could do select all I could also use any my selection tools. These you're going to be these little dashed tools that you see over here like the rectangle tool rectangular marquis tool and I could make a selection just like a word in a ward doctor, right? Make a selection, make a selection copy over here paste and when it doesn't work the first time try it again. Ex election copy and paste. There we go. So now what did I do? I just pasted another layer into my document. Now it looks a little bit different, though, so what's different about because of the size was different so while the two images that open and paste on top of each other, it was like to eight by ten photos on top of each other that's why couldn't see through this one is different? This is like putting a four by six on top of him, so I'll still see what's around it outside of that layer, layers have stacking so that's the stacking order you're going to see what's at the top of the layer stack if I want to change that, all I have to do is drag and drop to that, so drag it drop it it's that they're sure because I can go to this layer turn seizes a little eyeball icon and go to this later turn it off and now I see what's below I can go to this layer, turn that eyewall icon and I could see what's below so layers give you a really flexible way to work inside of photo shop it's it's the foundation because it lets us do things what they call non destructively, all right, we're not hurting the image if I want if I want to get rid of this logo, I turned the eyeball if I don't have to erase it away and hopes that I might want it again one day and then paste it back in so I can just turn these on and off. All right so where we know how to stack our layers we know the overall kind of stacking system of looking down at the layers we know how to get layers into one document to the other document interesting side topic here is remember this image it's no longer linked back to the other one ok so if I close it it's still over here I could go back to the other means I could scribble over and I could change it the black I could do whatever I want but they're not linked together okay so it's just it's once you pace that of another image they're two separate documents as faras photoshopped concern all right, so let's ah let's close these images for a second we're gonna come back to him in a little while but we'll show you something else so talk about a real world use of layers so I've got two images here open up both of them I've got one image where what I did is when I took the photo I focused on the mountain in the background so mounds really sharp in the other photo I focused up close so everything up close is really sharp so what I want to do is I want to combine the best of the best of both of these really I want to get him but I want to get a tax sharp image when everything up close everything in the distance what I can do by the way you guys see me zooming in and out so if anybody's wondering it's the keyboard shortcuts commander control plus and plus zooms in command minus zoomed out it's just a short cut of going to your zoom tool and zooming it out that way so what I'm going to do here is I'm going to take this image go to select all copy go back to this image and then paste it she saw what happened in the layers power now I got two layers bottom layer my background later I'm going to rename it just to make it easy to understand so it just all you gotta do is double click to rename a layer double click on it and I'll call this sharp background ok then I'm gonna turn on the top layer and I'll double click layer one call that sharp foreground so I got two layers sharp foreground sharp background I want to get the best of both worlds I want to merge these two together so what I need to do is I need to get rid of the part c this is the sharp foreground one this is down here sharply back here is not I need to get rid of that easiest way to get rid of that is the eraser tool but the letter e and then all you got to do is it works exactly like what you would think I just click and I race away at one hundred percent capacity and I race it away so now what I'm doing as I basically if you were to think of this as a layer I basically this took a paris scissors and just cut it out and so what's going to happen if there was a photo underneath it, I see whatever photo that wass same exact concept I just did it with an eraser tool here so you're racing away that later? Um that's that's the heart of what layers are that's what they let us do, they let us combine multiple images it let us do it in a way that really we couldn't do it anywhere else. So that's another example here we're going to go we'll get into some more as we go along um undue by the way, if you go appear to the edit menu just thrown out keyboard shortcuts step backward is what I'm doing here undo so that's just your continuous undue before I this a good stopping point so before I go any guy any questions now I thought there was a short cut where you could drag and drop an image into another one from your tabs just about the picture yes, there is a shortcut to drag and drop a layer if I were in this image I could take my move tool it's kind of it's like the secret it's like a secret handshake because nobody would ever know this you take the move tool and you click and you drag and you hold and then you drop it in and we'll see it pay sited in between there but yeah, that's like one of those you would never, ever know because there's no visual cue anything's happening right? I'm dragging I don't see anything I hold I don't see anything I dragged, I don't see anything as soon as they release I think, um all right, so let's talk about so we got our layers um let's talk about blending layers together because that's really where we get some powerful stuff, so I'm gonna open up document here and if you wanted to duplicate a layer, got one layer. If I press commander control jay that duplicates it just makes a copy to the exact same copies of layers here, so let's say let's say I do something to this layer all of your court image adjustments are going to be under the image adjustments maybe so levels, curves, exposure, everything all the core photoshopped photo adjustments or under here, so I'll go toe levels and I'm just going to drag this this dark slider over it's going to make the photo a lot darker now notice what happened here I only did it on that layer so it didn't affect the layer below it it matters what layer your clicked on in that layer stack matters a lot if I add another new layer and I tried to go to do something image adjustments levels it tells me I can't do it because that layer was empty there's nothing on it how do I know it was empty? I know from looking at it see that little checkerboard that's fotos helps way of giving you transparency it's just a way of saying there's nothing on it if you printed this on a white piece of paper it just be a white piece of paper printed them black piece of paper and be a black piece of paper it saying it's transparent there's nothing on there so that's as we add these layers and as we're working on layers it's important to remember what layer you click on over here is what layers is active that's what layers selected so if I click on this layer and I grab let's say my brush tool b and I scribble seethe scribble goes on that later okay and now it's nondestructive because I can move this cripple around I can hide the scribble I can erase the scribble which is really important because I would have been able to do that if I put it on the layer but I can erase the scribble away okay now it's still all in that layer that's different than if I did the scribble on this layer so now the scribble you can even look look at the layer thumb now that's a ziff I have my eight by ten photo and I just took a black sharpie and scribbled all over it all right so if I wanted to erase it what's going to happen and think about the senate time if I if I race what's on this layer what am I going to see the layer what's below it so if I race now I'm saying that faded layer that was at the bottom okay so that's our whole layer stacking as we start to work on it is it matters what later you're clicked on so as you're working sometimes it gets it gets a little bit you start to forget which later you click on and you drawn the wrong layers that's why it's important to know which one you're have active over here but let's get back to a little bit about blending so we know we can turn layers on and off thea other thing we have his opacity so opacity is how we'll take that layers I can drop this all the way down to zero bringing back up two hundred zero is if I turn the layer off one hundred is at full blast and then somewhere in between but opacity is its limited because it's just it's just honor offered some some level in between where layers get really powerful is this layer blend mood inside of here? This is where we can really start to do things with our layers because now we can blend them together in a different way so we go ahead and delete this layer which by the way, you can just hit the delete key and I'll press commander control j makes a copy of it and uh there's I know the menu looks daunting so remember your mom? I'd never show mom all thirty three blend modes inside of here. All right, but what I would tell her is, mom, don't worry about any of them except for four all right there's only there's only four that you ever we need to worry about. And even as you've been however long you've been using photoshopped chances are you use one of these four blend boats so the first one is multiply what multiply does is it just darkens, okay, you don't see it take place over here because what it's doing is it's based on the lead it's based on these layers talking to each other so we're opacity we just honor off multiply actually looks at the top layer, looks at the bottom layer and it multiplies them together makes it's always going to make it darker all right instantly makes it darker if you have a faded photo it's a perfect fix for a faded photo because it just all automatically adds a little bit of contrast a little bit darkness old photos I have a class tomorrow on restoration to big trick that I use my classes is duplicate the layer hit multiply and just makes the photo look more contrast and then to go back to the theme that we were using before is to me the sky gets a little bit too kind of over punchy up here so I could just take my racer tool and I could erase it away all right or if that racist too much remember your tools all have options so I could take the opacity of the eraser told not the layer just the tool and drop it to fifty percent now it's using the tool at half power so I could race it away so now I have a better sky I have a little bit of a darker sky but I really kind of beef up that four rounds so that it looks more contrast ing but that's multiple and that's going to be your your first one let's talk about another use of multiply so I've got by the way remember that whole color profile thing I talked about in the beginning if you just want to turn it off if you go to your edit menu there's something called color settings and there's these little boxes here ask when opening so I just turned them on for the class because sometimes they're on and I wanted to show you guys but honestly guys, I just turn them off because the default is photoshopped going keep the existing one so you don't have to worry about it so I just turned they turned those check boxes off and that way when that happens you're not going to see those dialogues every time it will just automatically keep keep the one that you want all right, so we got our we got a photo here let's go open up another image and we see these you can download frames or frame packs everywhere they come in these black and white frames well, let's go ahead and let's get this image into the other one so why could use the dragon drop method? I'll just go select off copy paste all right. So going back to our blend moods another interesting thing about multiply is it drops out white so if you've ever had a frame like this or maybe a logo like a black and white logo and it's got you know the logo comes in a square document but your low was not square right but it's you want to get rid of the white if you change your blend moved to multiply, it drops out white ok so you don't have to go in there and do intricate selections and all that stuff multiply automatically drops out white and then it'll leave everything that was black now screen we had multiply multiplies the darkening one or removes white we also has screen screens the opposite screens exact opposite a multiply screen will drop out black it's why you barely see it or we'll drop out the black and you could see the photo through there and it keeps the white you kind of see it through the edges there okay, what to do on a photo on a photo it's automatically going toe like and everything it's the exact opposite of multiply okay multiply brightens everything this automatically legs everything not that I'd want a late in this photo but I'm going to show you an example where we might want to do that so here I have a photo I think kind of looks ok up there it's a little bit dark on my screen their faces are just they're they're in shadows I'm going to go press commander control jay to duplicate the layer you know I got a copy on top change it to screen so brightens everything so now going to take my racer tool and I'm going to erase away one hundred percent I'm going to re race away everything but their faces I just want to kind of break in their faces a little bit so I race that away as you're brushing interesting little side note about hope too much there as you're brushing side note about russia's is you can change the size c appear in the top left corner there's a brush picker you've got size you've got all these preset brushes down here so I can change the size of my brush see now it's smaller, larger so I could change the size of my brush as I get around some of these edges and then I'll just go back and make my breasts larger just for all the other stuff to worry about it okay? You can even look at your layer thumbnail you can kind of get an idea floating heads so now what I've done is I brought in their faces are they too bright? Probably and that's why we have capacity so aiken dial that back and I'll also when I change and I'll also see places that I missed but that's a quick way to just write in a part of a photo just want to draw attention to it people use it all the time on portrait's for eyes you'll see it, you'll see it sometimes on teeth you'll see on people whatever you want to draw attention to two real quick waited just bright in a part of a photo okay all right so that is multiply and screen the other two are overlay and softly let's go in fact let's go back to this image really quick commander control j I'll change this to overlay overlay and softly or contrast one is his punch here than the other overlay is more punchy soft light not quite as much but they both just add contrast they boost the contrast in the photo so multiply darken screen makes everything brighter and then the only other two you need to worry about overlay and softly and they just add contrast so I think soft like would actually work good on the background here and then what I could do is just use my racer tool any race away it kind of makes their skin a little bit red so I could race that away and then lower the capacity so just make the background a little bit more saturated a little bit more contrast so you've got your four blend moods multiply screen overlay softly darken lytton ad contrast that's the four blend with honestly guys seriously like that's before that you'll use the most yes on question why would you not just use lighten or darken first this screen or multiplied um because those aren't part of the four that would tell my so the question was why would you not just use light and dark in all those blend modes they all some of them do exactly the same thing lightning dark and work in a different way multiply and screen just tend to be the better ones for bright nanda light and dark, and would make it too easy because they do what it says, and then I would have a job and it wouldn't sound like, ooh, multiply now light and dark and just do it in a different way multiplying screen or the cut it has been the standards experiment with them, you stay, they all they all work a little bit different as you start to get familiar with him, try it might work better uh, all right and let's, take a look at one more blend mode example so I've got a photo and I've got a texture, so I'm gonna select all and copy and then paste, so I've got a texture on top of a photo. If you goto over, layer softly it's a really cool way to add a texture, look to something you could reduce your capacity. Try soft light member software just a less punchy version, it adds contrast, it just doesn't add quite as much contrast as overly does real cool quick, easy way to add some some texture to something now.