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 group
A complete group of layers that can be moved, deleted, or copied in the Layers palette as a single unit. Layer groups can be viewed in the Layers palette and be expanded or compressed as needed to view details of the group's contents.
layer mask
A mask that conceals a portion of a layer without actually deleting it, enabling the lower layers to show through those areas of the mask.
layer set
See [layer group]
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 data from GIF images to create a smaller file size.
