The basics of Photoshop Layers

Layers are the fundamental feature of Adobe Photoshop products. Without the basic knowledge of layers, the Photoshop experience gets pretty limited.

For this lesson you need to click here to download the Photoshop file I prepared for you.

After the download, open that file. You can see a dog.

It's a Boston Terrier named Roxy ;)

You should see the 3 layers named Dog, Hat and Mustache.

In case you don't see the layers click Window and Layers or press F7 for a keyboard shortcut.

Click the box next to the Hat to make the layer visible.

Now you see a dog with a hat.

Now click the box next to Mustache to make the layer visible.

It's a dog with a hat and a mustache.

Everything clear so far?

Layers have an order, Dog is the bottom layer, Hat comes on top of the Dog layer and Mustache in this case is the top layer and is always visible.

Now, let's change the layer order and see what happens.

Click the Dog layer, hold the button ...

... drag it to the top and let the mouse button go. (see picture).

Dog is now the top layer, that's why you cannot see the Hat and Mustache layer.

Let's drag the Dog layer the same way we just did moments ago, but only one Layer lower so the Dog is now the middle layer. (see picture)

Mustache have now appeared but you still can't see the Hat. That's because Hat is the bottom layer and has a big Dog layer on top of it.

Drag the Dog layer to the bottom, just like it was at the beginning.

Roxy the dog once again wears the hat and the mustache.

Now let's make the Dog layer disappear.

Click the box next to Dog layer to hide the layer.

You should only see the Hat and the Mustache.

Click the box next to Dog layer once again to make the layer visible.

Let's have a look what the Opacity setting does to the layers.

Click the Hat layer  and set the Opacity to approx. 70%.

Have you noticed what has happened to the hat?

That's right, it became transparent.

The opacity makes layers transparent. Lower the percentage number, more transparent the layer gets.

I hope you now understand the basic functionality and usage of layers.