To its credit, Photoshop lets you establish a new layer in roughly a million ways. If you want to add a selected portion of one image to another image, the easiest method is to Ctrl+drag (Win) or z +drag (Mac) the selection and drop it into its new home, as demonstrated in Figure 5-2. Photoshop makes you a new layer, lickety-split.
Caution | Be sure to Ctrl+drag ( z +drag on the Mac) or use the Move tool. If you merely drag the selection with the Marquee, Lasso, or Wand, you drop an empty selection outline into the new image window. Also, be aware that pressing Ctrl (Win) or z (Mac) delivers the Move tool. But if the Pen or Shape tool is active, you get the Direct Selection tool instead, which won't work for you. Press V to get the good old Move tool and then try dragging again. |
When you drop the selection, your selection outline disappears. Not to worry, though. Now that the image resides on an independent layer, you no longer need the selection outline. You can move the layer using the Move tool, as you would move a selection. You can even paint inside what was once the selection by selecting the first of the Lock buttons in the Layers palette (the Lock Transparent Pixels button, which looks like a little checkerboard). The Move tool and all the Lock buttons are explained in greater detail throughout this chapter.
If you want to clone a selection to a new layer inside the same image window ” useful when performing complex filter routines and color corrections ” choose Layer New Layer Via Copy. Or press Ctrl+J ( z +J on the Mac).
Those are only two of the million ways to create a new layer in Photoshop. Here are the other 999,998 (or so):
Copy a selection (Ctrl+C or z +C) and paste it into another image (Ctrl+V or z +V). Photoshop pastes the selection as a new layer.
To relegate a selection exclusively to a new layer, choose Layer New Layer Via Cut or press Ctrl+Shift+J ( z +Shift+J on the Mac). Rather than cloning the selection, Layer Via Cut removes the selection from the image and places it on its own layer.
To convert a floating selection ” one which you've moved or cloned ” to a new layer, press Ctrl+Shift+J ( z +Shift+J on the Mac). The Shift key is very important. If you press Ctrl+J ( z +J) without Shift, Photoshop clones the selection and leaves an imprint of the image on the layer below.
To create an empty layer ” as when you want to paint a few brushstrokes without harming the original image ” choose Layer New Layer or press Ctrl+Shift+N ( z +Shift+N on the Mac). You can also click the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (labeled in Figure 5-3).
Figure 5-3: With many commands in common, the Layers palette menu and the Layer menu help you control the appearance and functioning of layers.
Ctrl+click ( z +click on the Mac) the new layer icon. When you create a new layer, Photoshop positions it in front of the active layer. To create a new layer behind the active layer, you Ctrl+click.
Incidentally, you can also create a new layer by choosing New Layer from the Layers palette menu. But as you can see in Figure 5-3, nearly all the palette commands are duplicated in the Layer menu. The only unique palette commands are Dock to Palette Well, which sends the Layers palette tab to the Options bar, and Palette Options, which lets you change the size of the thumbnails in front of the layer names . Turns out, you can perform the latter technique more easily by right- clicking (Control+clicking on the Mac) in the palette's empty space below the layers and choosing an option.
Tip | When you choose the Layer Via Copy or Layer Via Cut command or click the new layer icon, Photoshop automatically names the new layer for you. Unfortunately, the automatic names ” Layer 1, Layer 2, and so on ” are fairly meaningless and don't help to convey the contents of the layer. |
If you want to specify a more meaningful name , add the Alt key (Option on the Mac). Press Ctrl+Alt+J ( z +Option+J) to clone the selection to a layer, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+J ( z +Shift+Option+J) to cut the selection, or Alt+click (Option+click) the new layer icon to create a blank layer. In any case, you see the dialog box shown in Figure 5-4. Enter a name for the layer. If you like, you can also assign a color to a layer, which is helpful for identifying a layer name at a glance. Then press Enter or Return. (For now, you can ignore the other options in this dialog box.)
When creating a new layer from the keyboard, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N ( z +Shift+Option+N on the Mac) to bypass the dialog box. Note that pressing Alt or Option works both ways, forcing the dialog box to display on some occasions and suppressing it on others. The only time it produces no effect is when pasting or dropping an image.
Tip | To rename a layer, just double-click on the name and type the new name directly into the Layers palette. |
To clone the active layer, you can choose Layer Duplicate Layer. But the more convenient way is to drag the name or icon of the layer you want to clone onto the new layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.
To specify a name for the cloned layer or to copy the layer into another image, Alt+drag (Option+drag on the Mac) the layer onto the new layer icon. Always the thoughtful program, Photoshop displays the dialog box shown in Figure 5-5. You can name the cloned layer by entering something in the As text box. To copy the layer to some other open image, choose the image name from the Document pop-up menu. Or choose New and enter the name for an entirely different image in the Name option box, as the figure shows.
Tip | You can clone a layer by simply Ctrl+Alt+dragging ( z +Option+dragging) it inside the image window. This way, you clone the layer and reposition it in one operation. If the active selection tool is in New Selection mode, be sure not to begin your drag inside a selection outline; if you do, you create a floating selection. |