Grouping Objects into Sublayers

The next step in your workflow is to duplicate the entire row of photographs. You could just Option-drag the selected objects to duplicate them. However, you would then have a total of eight loose objects to deal with in your Photographs layer. Instead, let's group the first row of photographs. Grouping objects turns them into a sublayer, which allows you to modify all four at one time while maintaining their alignment.

There are three ways to group selected objects in Motion:

• Choose Object > Group.

• Press Shift-Cmd-G.

• Create a new layer and drag it onto the existing layer to create a sublayer; then move the objects onto the sublayer.

Let's try the menu method here.

1.	Choose Object > Group. NOTE Make sure that all four Sunset objects are selected before you group them. A new sublayer appears within the Photographs layer, and a single bounding box appears around all of the Sunset objects in the Canvas. Now you have a choice of selecting an individual Sunset object or the entire sublayer. To select an individual object in the sublayer, you need to select it on the Layers tab. Clicking the objects in the Canvas without holding down the Command key will select only the group sublayer.
2.	Select the Sunset object on the Layers tab to select only that object.
3.	Select the sublayer that contains all four Sunset objects to select the entire layer. Let's duplicate the entire sublayer in the Canvas and drag it to the bottom of the frame.
4.	Option-drag the grouped sublayer downward in the Canvas to duplicate it. A duplicate sublayer appears on the Photographs layer and in the Canvas.
5.	Drag the duplicate layer in the Canvas to the bottom of the frame. It's a good idea to keep the project organized as you go. Let's apply what you learned earlier in this lesson to change the names of the two sublayers to Top and Bottom, hide the contents, and then change the order of the sublayers.
6.	Double-click the Layer copy Name field, type Bottom, and press Return.
7.	Double-click the Layer Name field, type Top, and press Return.
8.	Click the disclosure triangles on both of the sublayers to hide their contents.
9.	Drag the Top sublayer above the Bottom sublayer. Use the placement indicator to make sure that you are moving it within the Photographs layer.
10.	Press Cmd-S to save your progress.