A Photoshop method for separating image components for easy access and editing. Layers follow the metaphor of clear acetate overlays that can be stacked and rearranged.
layer mask
A mask that conceals a portion of a layer without actually deleting it, allowing the lower layers to show through those areas of the mask.
layer set
A complete group of layers that can be moved deleted, or copied within the Layers palette as a single unit. Layer sets can be viewed in the Layers palette and can be expanded or compressed as needed to view details of the set's contents.
layer tile
In the Layers palette, each layer is represented as a horizontal tile. These tiles can be hidden or revealed, linked, grouped, or combined into working layer sets.
leading
The spacing between lines of text. Leading values are usually expressed in points and are compared to the font's point size.
lens flare
A bright spot of light on an image that simulates the lens flare created when a photographer points a camera lens into the sun.
lossy
A term normally used to describe the nature of the compression method used by the JPEG format. The compression format is referred to as lossy because some information is discarded, or lost. It is because of this technique that JPEG images can be compressed to a much smaller file size than images compressed with other formats. In the Save For Web dialog box, the Lossy option removes colors to create a smaller file size.
