Working with Layers

Layers sound complicated, but they're not. They're really quite simple, if you've ever seen an animated cartoon. Animators work with two kinds of materials, sheets of white Bristol board, or something similar as backgrounds, and sheets of heavy transparent cellophane, called cells . The background holds the things that don't change: trees, grass, Marge's kitchen walls, Homer's couch . There are up to four or five cell layers for each character. Hands and feet move more than heads and trunks, so that the bodies are dismembered and placed on different layers. If Homer is to wave, for example, three or four drawings will be done of just his arm in different positions , from down to up. Then the sequence will be photographed with a different arm in each frame of film. It's layers that make it possible to see this movement.

Working with layers enables you to build up multipart collages of many images, paint over an original photo without destroying it, make color corrections that you can apply selectively to parts of the picture, stack picture elements behind others, andI can go on and on.

When you open a new image in Elements, it has a background layer. No others. If you then paste something in what you've copied to the Clipboard, you'll automatically make a new layer. You can use the Layers palette to keep track of your layers. Think of it as a sort of command center for layer management. You can add and remove layers from the palette itself and manage them with its menu.

In Figure 23.16, I've assembled a page with a bunch of different layers. Type goes on a separate layer. Adjustment layers enable you to correct color and exposure, with the advantage of letting you also control how much of the correction you want to apply. A layer can change both opacity and blending mode as needed.

You can start a new layer in any of several ways. Whether you're pasting something in, or dragging it from another open file, the new part of the image will automatically be placed on a new layer. As soon as you position the Type tool on the picture and start entering letters , you've created a type layer to set them on. Because they are on their own layer, you can move the words around, correct spelling, even erase them and try different words or a different font, without risking the rest of the image. However, if you want to paint on a new layer over your image, create a new layer manually by selecting New from the Layer menu, or by clicking on the small New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

As you add more and more layers to your document, you'll probably need to give them more descriptive names , so that you can easily identify their content. To change the name of a layer, double-click the layer to open the Layer Properties dialog box. Type the name of the layer in the text box, and click OK. You can also simply double-click the name in the Layers palette, and type the new name right there. Press Enter when you're done.

Task: Experimenting with Layers

1. Start a new image (default size is fine). Open the Layers palette and drag it away from the palette well, so that it stays open on the screen.

2. Click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the palette. Now, you have Layer 1 on top of the background.

3. Go back to the background for a moment by clicking on the word "Background" on the Layers palette, and pour a color into it. To do this, set the foreground color to something light by first clicking its swatch and then choosing a color from the Color Picker. Select the Paint Bucket and click on the background. (Yes, you can use the Paint Bucket to fill a layer with color just as you can use it to fill a selection marquee or drawn object. You can also use the Edit, Fill command to fill a layer.)

4. Notice that, on the far left, the palette shows a brush on the active layer, and each layer has an open eye, indicating that both layers are visible. Click Layer 1 again, and see the brush move up to it.

5. Draw a large star with the Polygonal Lasso tool and fill it with a color that is darker than your background. To do this, click the arrow on the Lasso tool and select the Polygonal Lasso tool. Click once in the layer to establish the first star point. Click to draw each side of the star and double-click to complete the last side. To fill it with color, select a darker foreground color, click the Paint Bucket, and then click inside the star. At this point, your screen and Layers palette will look something like Figure 23.17.

   Figure 23.17. Layer 1 is active, because that's where the brush is.

   

6. Click the eye next to the Background thumbnail. The background disappears, being replaced by a gray checkerboard indicating transparency. That happens because Layer 1 is transparent until you put something on it. If you look closely at the thumbnail, you will see the star you painted . Click the eye again to bring back the background. Save and close your star image.