Understanding Layers in Photoshop – Day 4 — Transcript

Hello and welcome to day four of 30 days of Photoshop.

Today we're discussing the importance of layers, which are the key to non-destructive editing in Photoshop.

Layers are one of the foundational tools that separate Photoshop from other photo editing programs, they allow you to non-destructively edit your images.

And by placing multiple layers throughout your photo, you have full control of each layer and you can always turn them off and on and get back to your original photograph.

Now, there are a lot of different types of layers in Photoshop, you have standard layers, you have adjustment layers, which will change the look and feel of your images and then you have things like text or shape layers as well.

In today's video, we're going to create a photo composite using layers as well as masking and we're going to show you how everything works together.

So here's our image to start with today, by the way, you can download this as well as all of the sample assets for 30 days of Photoshop totally free, just click on the link right down below.

So in this example, we have our like our subject is holding a Polaroid and I want to change the Polaroid that they're actually holding. So the first thing we're going to do, let's go ahead and move into finder and I've got another photograph here of our subject and I want to simply click and drag this JPEG right here into this image and it's going to go ahead and place that, we're going to use to hit this checkbox right up at the very top.

So already we can see we have our layers, by the way, if you don't see your layers panel, just be sure to go to window and then down here to layers and make sure that is checked. So when I drag this other photograph in, it shows up as a new layer.

So you can see right over here in my layers panel, I can simply turn this layer off and on at any time, with this layer, I have control for the layer blend mode as well as my opacity, so if I want to be able to see through this just a little bit, I can change my opacity and here I'm looking at two different layers at the same time.

Now, the other thing that you're going to notice here is that my background layer, okay, automatically is going to be locked by default, meaning we're not going to be able to move the background layer.

You can always convert a background layer into a regular layer, all you have to do is double click on the layer, it just converts it to a new layer, hit okay and now you can see it just says layer zero and there's no lock, so I can move my background around if I wanted to as well.

Okay, one more thing I want to call attention to before we get started with our composite is when I brought in this photograph of my subject, you're going to see this icon here in our layers panel.

This is what's called a smart object, now this is fantastic because a smart object will allow you to edit the contents of this layer non-destructively.

For instance, if you want to make it brighter or darker, you're going to be able to change those settings at any point in time.

We have a full video on smart objects later in the 30 days of Photoshop series.

But I just kind of wanted to show you what that actually means.

Okay, so now let's go ahead and take this subject layer.

We're going to bring our opacity all the way back to 100, we're going to just click and drag on this word opacity all the way to the right, there we go, to 100%.

And then I'm going to use this eye, click, click there to make this invisible.

Okay, so we're back looking at our background layer and I'm going to just double click on this and we're just going to call this background.

Fantastic, simply double click and you can name layers whatever you want.

Okay, so now with this background layer, what I'd like to do is make a selection inside of this Polaroid.

And to do that, we're going to go here to our selection tools in Photoshop.

Now, the one that's going to work best here, let's go right over here, uh to right below our object selection tool.

We're going to use the quick selection tool.

Now, the quick selection tool, make sure you're selected on your background, you can simply kind of click and drag this over an area and you're going to see it's going to kind of expand my selection and make sure that all of this area does get selected.

And when I let go, you can see it did a fantastic job selecting this area.

So this is really the first step in our composite work.

We have to start with a selection and then we can use that selection to define a layer mask for our subject.

Okay, so we've made this selection on our background layer.

But the selections that we use in Photoshop are independent of any layer.

Meaning if you make a selection from one layer, you can use it on another layer.

Okay, let's go ahead and turn our subject layer on and you can see my selection is actually still active.

So now that I have a selection active, I want to use this selection to create a layer mask for my subject layer.

And a layer mask is going to allow you to hide or show parts of your layer.

It controls visibility.

So because I already have a selection here, when I click on my layer mask icon, it's going to make sure that only that area is visible from this layer.

Okay, really easy to do.

When you have your selection active, like we do, you can go to your contextual taskbar.

By the way, if you don't see your contextual taskbar, simply go to window.

And then down to contextual taskbar, make sure that's turned on.

Okay, now this is our layer mask icon, so you can go ahead and click on your layer mask icon, it's going to be here in your contextual taskbar.

It's also always going to be in your layers panel at the very bottom right over here.

So either one you want to click on is totally okay.

Let's go ahead and click there and we're going to see.

Just like that, it turns that selection into a mask for this layer.

Okay, so already you can see the power of layers, I can turn this layer off and on at any time.

I can move it around, I can change my layer mask.

And layers are really the key to creating composite images in Photoshop.

Okay, there's one more thing that I wanted to show you.

And that's the difference between a layer versus a layer mask.

And how to work with each of those independently.

So we're going to see right here, we have our layer with our subject.

Again, it's a smart object, which you can see here with my smart object icon.

We have a little chain link and then we have our layer mask.

Notice if I click here on my layer, I have a white border around the layer itself.

If I click on the mask, now I have a white border around the mask.

So you can edit each one of these independently.

Now, this little chain link means that if I move my layer, my layer mask is going to move with it.

So let's go ahead and click on my layer.

We're going to go to our move tool here on the top left of our toolbar.

You can also hit V for your move tool.

Now, if I click and drag and I start to move this layer, well, you can see the layer is moving, but the layer mask is moving as well.

So it's kind of destroying our illusion.

I'm going to hit control or command Z to hit undo.

Now, let's go to this little chain link between our layer and layer mask.

By default, they're linked together.

So if you move one, the other is going to move as well.

Now, if I click on this chain link and unlink them.

Now, check this out.

I can click here on my layer and I can move my layer around.

And the layer mask stays exactly where it is.

So I want to bring this up here to kind of like continue the effect of the mountains.

A little bit of like a cool, you know.

Just a little play with the eye there.

Okay, so I can move my layer at any time.

In fact, if I want to, I could hit control or command T for transform.

And then right up here for where it says width and height, I can simply click and scroll on either the W or the H and I can scale this larger or smaller as well.

So I can move this however I want.

I could flip this horizontally if I want to, I can flip this vertically if I want to.

And I could rotate it by using the rotate command here.

Or simply scroll out to the very edge and rotate just like that.

Now, I'm going to hit escape because I actually liked it just how it was before.

But basically what I wanted to show you is I'm able to move the layer itself and the layer mask is going to stay in the same place.

Now, if I click on the layer mask, I can now move the mask and the layer stays in the same place.

Okay, so layers and masks are intrinsically linked together.

But you can unlink them at any time.

Okay, now I want to link these back together.

So we're going to go ahead and click on this link.

Fantastic.

Now, this effect is already starting to look good, but as you can see, the edge of my selection here is just a little bit too sharp.

I want it to be a little bit of a blurred edge there.

It's going to make this effect look a lot more realistic.

So what we're going to do here is we're going to double click right here on our layer mask.

Let's double click on the layer mask, which is going to bring us into our select and mask dialogue.

Okay, you can also simply click on your layer mask.

And go to select and then down here to select and mask.

Now, if this is the first time when you double click on your layer mask, it might actually ask you if you want to use edit your properties of your layer mask.

Or go to select and mask.

I recommend going to select and mask.

Okay.

So here in select and mask, there's a lot to go over.

But basically on the right hand side where you see global refinements, let's go ahead and open that up.

And here's where we can add some feathering to the layer mask.

And as you can see, as I feather this, we're just going to get a little bit of a softer edge.

Now, I can bring my contrast up as well.

There we go, so feathering and contrast work pretty well together.

There we go, let's just make sure we have a really nice edge.

There we go, something like that's looking pretty good.

And here you can shift your edge in and out as well.

If you want, you know, a little bit more of a shadow with your Polaroid effect, you can get that.

Let's go ahead and shift that out just like that.

And bring our contrast down low.

So we have a really nice realistic effect there.

Fantastic, so this is changing just the layer mask.

This is not actually editing the layer itself.

Okay, so we can always edit layers and layer masks.

Fantastic.

Now, let's go ahead and hit okay here on the bottom right.

And this is looking really, really good.

So now it's time to bring in one more layer.

And today's video is all about layers.

We're going to be bringing in another layer and then showing you how all these layers work together.

Okay, so for our next layer.

We're going to go right back to our finder window.

And we're going to bring in this image that is a light leak.

By the way, I said it already.

But you can download all these sample images and follow along.

Just click on the link right down below.

Okay, so this light leak image.

We're going to click and drag this here into my photograph as well.

And I'm going to hit that checkbox right up there.

Okay, now zooming out, you can see this has brought in as its own layer.

And again, it's a smart object because we dragged it right into our document.

I can turn this off and on and I can even change my opacity.

Now, the other thing that we're going to do with this layer.

Is we're going to change the blend mode of this layer.

Now, we have an entire video on blend modes.

But basically, a blend mode is how these layers interact with each other.

So my goal is to make this dark area disappear and just this light area visible.

So we're going to go right here where it says normal.

This is where our blend modes are.

Let's go ahead and click there.

And we're going to see we have our normal group.

Then we have a darken group, which is actually the opposite of what we want.

And then we have our lighten group, okay, and then we have also screen.

Let's try lighten to start with.

I think this is going to be pretty interesting.

Okay, now we're going to hit control or command T.

For transform on the light leak layer and we're just going to make this a little bit smaller.

There we go, and we can kind of put this wherever we want, we can kind of create these interesting effects with our light leaks.

There we go, something like that looks pretty good.

And we could even lower our opacity here.

There we go, so we have like an interesting light leak, uh effect right there.

Now, you're probably noticing that this is kind of just visible everywhere, right?

And I really only want this to be visible in the Polaroid.

So we have two ways of doing that.

The first way that I could do this is I can take the layer mask that's on the subject.

And I can actually duplicate it and put it on the light leak layer as well.

So, here's how I would do that, you can hold alt or option and click and drag a layer mask from one layer to another.

Boom, and just like that.

You can see now it's just visible here on the Polaroid.

So it basically duplicates and we have the same layer mask.

Okay, let's hit undo.

I want to show you another way of doing this.

The way that I prefer.

We're actually going to use this light leak.

We're going to make this a clipping mask.

Now, a clipping mask is a type of layer that only is visible.

To the layer underneath it.

Okay, so to make this layer a clipping mask, you can hold alt or option.

And move your cursor in between two separate layers.

You can see I have a square icon with a down arrow.

Now, if I click there.

There you can see, now this is going to be clipped and only visible where the layer is underneath it.

I can hold alt or option and click there again.

And it's going to go back to a regular layer.

So here you can see the difference between a regular layer and a clipping mask.

How cool is that?

Okay, another way you can do this is by going up here to layer.

And then down here to create a clipping mask.

Which is right over here.

Or the keyboard shortcut option command G.

But I think holding alt or option and going right between them.

Boom.

Is a really easy way to do this.

Now I can lower my opacity and just kind of like create an interesting effect there.

All right.

So we're already looking pretty good.

Our effect looks really good.

I want to add a little bit more information to this Polaroid.

To really kind of like make it feel like it's actually a Polaroid.

And what we're going to do here is we're going to create a layer right above our photograph.

And then paint with our brush tool.

Okay, so we're going to go here to our subject layer.

Keep in mind, we have our background layer.

I can just turn all these off and on.

We have our background.

I have my subject.

And I have my light leaks.

There we go, now right above my subject, we're going to create a new layer by clicking on the new layer icon.

Okay, now you can see because I created a new layer underneath the light leak layer.

It's automatically clipped to my subject.

So when you see this down arrow, that's telling you the clipping mask is applied.

And it's going to be only visible where this layer is.

So you can create as many clipping mask layers as you'd like.

Okay.

Now, on this layer.

We're going to hit B for the brush tool.

So let's use our brush tool.

Okay, here at the very top of my, uh brush tool options.

I'm going to choose my opacity is going to be 100%.

And my flow, I'm going to choose about 20%.

And I'm going to be using a trackpad here.

Now, this layer, we're going to change the blend mode.

We're going to go from normal.

We're going to change this down to where it says soft light.

Fantastic.

So, let's hit B for the brush tool.

And then I'm going to hold alt or option and this allows me to have an eye dropper.

Where I can choose any color in my image.

So, let's go ahead and choose kind of like a darker brown color here.

And I'm going to paint here around the edges.

Let's make our brush a little bit smaller.

You can use your open and close brackets to do that.

There we go, and I'm just going to kind of darken the edges here just a little bit of my Polaroid.

There we go, so this is going to kind of give it that like Polaroid type of feel.

And I'm just going to painting over here and I'm not trying to make this like a perfect, you know.

Uh like a perfect amount everywhere, I want it to kind of be uneven because that's what's kind of like, you know, Polaroids are just like a little bit uneven in their exposure.

Okay.

Now, let's go ahead and take a bright color.

So still with my brush tool, I'm going to hold alt or option and grab that color there.

And then we're going to paint like a little bit of a light area here on the top there.

All right.

And let's go ahead and grab a dark color and put it right there.

So this little effect that I did just with my brush tool, you can see it kind of makes it look a little bit more like a Polaroid.

There we go, and that's looking really, really cool.

Now, the next thing that we're going to do.

Because today's episode is on layers.

We're going to be introducing a new type of layer.

And that's going to be an adjustment layer.

So to get to your adjustments, we're going to go right over here to our adjustment window.

So let's go ahead and click on adjustments.

And we're going to use a gradient map.

Now, a gradient map is really great for coloring your images.

So let's go ahead and click on gradient map.

There we go, and as you can see, it has in fact colored our image.

Not exactly the color we want, but it has colored our image.

Okay, so let's go ahead and change this.

We're going to go right over here to our gradient editor and I can click on a few of these different colors.

There we go, but going back to my layers, you can see I now have a gradient map adjustment layer.

And again, this is clipped to just the subject.

So that's why it's only showing up where the subject is.

Now, right now it's just visible at 100% opacity.

This is why it's a little bit strong.

So we're going to go ahead and lower our opacity.

There we go, so we have a little bit more of an interesting effect.

And it's basically working to color grade that photo.

Giving us this interesting texture.

Now, I can double click right here on this gradient map at any time.

And I can simply choose to change my gradient map.

And this is going to basically change the color grading of this photo.

And the last thing we're going to do is apply a couple of different filters to our subject.

So, let's go here to our subject layer.

And as you can see, it's really in focus, but I want to add a little bit of a blur.

Which is going to help this effect look a little bit better.

So, we're going to go ahead and click here on our subject layer.

Because this is a smart object, I can use smart filters.

So, we're going to go up here to where it says filter.

We're going to go down to where it says blur.

And we're going to go to a Gaussian blur.

Now, I can choose how much blur I'd like on this photo to create this realistic effect.

But let's say I do too much of a blur.

I'm going to hit okay.

All I have to do at this point because we have a smart object.

Is I can go right over here where it says Gaussian blur, double click on that.

And I can change this blur at any point in time.

To give me an effect that looks a little bit more realistic.

All right.

Let's hit okay.

The last thing I want to do is add a little bit of noise to this image.

So, we're going to go to filter.

We're going to go down to noise.

And over to add noise.

There we go.

And I can change my amount here and it just adds a little bit of noise to this image and makes it look a little bit more like the background.

And a little bit more like a Polaroid.

Let's hit okay there.

And this looks really good.

So, as we can see, we have our subject with our smart filters and our layer mask, all of this intact.

So, this is how layers are really great because they all work together and we can turn these off and on at any time.

And really move these around.

So, let's go ahead and check that out.

At this point in time, if I wanted to, I have my layer with my subject and my layer mask.

I could unlink those.

And I could still use my move tool.

And I can still move my subject at any point in time.

And you're going to see the light leak stays in the same exact position.

I'm going to hit control or command Z to hit undo.

Now, I have this layer where I kind of like changed like the lighting around the edge.

You know what, if I like that.

I could hit control or command J and duplicate that.

There we go, and have like an even stronger effect.

I could hit control or command T and scale this up a little bit.

And there we have basically two versions of that effect.

So with these layers, I can work with it at any time.

This gradient map, I can turn off and on at any point in time.

I can change my opacity of the gradient map.

And even work on our layer mask.

And I can go to our light leak and turn this off and on at any time.

I can even click on that and use my move tool.

And move it to different parts of my image as I see fit.

So I really just have the choice to continue editing this image.

And to make it exactly my own while not affecting the original background layer.

I can simply go to the eyeball and turn all of these layers off.

And then I have my background layer completely intact.

And this is the best part about non-destructive editing.

We did all this really cool composite work, but our background layer has not been touched.

So anytime you want to create an effect in Photoshop or combine multiple images together.

Layers are the way to go.

They're the key to non-destructive editing and it's what makes Photoshop separate from every other program.

Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you in tomorrow's video.

Bye everyone.