Beginner - Working with Layers

Bonehead · #1 01-15-2008, 11:16 PM

Click "FILE" and select "NEW". Set new layer to 400 pixels wide by 350 pixels tall @72 resolution with a transparent background. You now have a single blank layer. Notice the layer pallette which is located on the right side of your screen. There is one layer named "Layer 1".

I am going to demonstrate some of the more common tasks that you will use in making sig pics. We will now fill the blank layer with color. Click on the foreground color which is located below your tools. This brings up a box for you to choose a color. Choose a blue color and click OK. Hold your "ALT" key and click "BACKSPACE". This is the easiest way to fill a selection or a layer with the foreground color.

Now that we have a background color, let's put some objects on top of this layer. In order to do this we need to create a layer on top of the existing layer by clicking the "New Layer" icon at he bottom of the layer pallette next to the trash can icon. Go ahead and do that now. Presto, another layer is created with a blank canvas named Layer 2. We are going to create a green circle on this layer. Select your elliptical tool (Circle). If the rectangle tool is showing just click and hold the rectangle tool and a dropdown menu will popup showing the elliptical tool, select it. Now make sure that Layer 2 is active by clicking on it in the layer pallette. Click and drag a circle on the top right quadrant of the canvas about 1/4 of the size of the image and let go. Notice the marching ants, this is your selected area. Changes can only be made within the confines of that area, nowhere else. Change your foreground color to green and hold "ALT" while clicking "BACKSPACE". We now have a green circle sitting in a layer on top of the bottom blue layer. The great thing is that you can move either layer without affecting the other.

Let's practice moving a layers contents around on the screen. Make sure that the Green circle layer is selected and Click "V" which is your move tool. Click on the green circle and hold it. Now drag it around on the screen. You can move it around as much as you like and as many times as you like. Maybe you want the circle smaller. Let's resize it. Click "EDIT / TRANSFORM" which will bring up your selection transformation grid. Hold the "SHIFT" key while dragging one of the corners inward to make the circle smaller. The bottom layer has been unaffected by all of these changes.

So far we have the following:

Download the following file by clicking this link and saving for use in this demo:
http://uploadpsd.com/file/19116.psd

Once downloaded, while you have your current project open, click "FILE / OPEN" and browse to the file that you downloaded. Select it and click "OPEN". Now you have two seperate files open and can switch back and for by clicking on each one. Let's click on the bike image. Notice that your layer pallette changed to match the layers in the bike image. Drag the image by the top blue bar to a position that you can see part of the other image behind it. Select your "MOVE" tool by clicking "V" and click and drag the bike layer off of that image and onto the bottom image. Now you have a third layer named Layer 3 which is the bike layer. Your move tool is already selected so just click the bike and drag it around until you get it where you want it.

The above procedure is what you would do if you downloaded one of the bike chops that are posted as .psd files. You could take any picture and drag the bike layer from the .psd chop file onto your background and move it into place. Here is what it should look like

One more task and we are done with the first part. Let's add a HD Logo to the circle and blend it in. He

Bonehead · #2 01-15-2008, 11:17 PM

To chop a bike out of it's current background and place it in another background, you would start by opening your image in Photoshop by clicking "FILE" and selecting "OPEN". Browse to the image and click open. If you look at the layer pallette, you have one layer named background; this layer is useless to you. Drag the background layer to the "NEW LAYER" icon at the bottom of the layer pallette located next to the trash can. Now you have a duplicate layer named Layer 1. Turn off the original background layer by un-checking the checkbox on the left side of the layer in the layer pallette. Here is what my original looks like:

WARNING! If you do not create a duplicate as described above and you commence to chop the bike, all you will do is chop out the background and replace it with white. The bike will not be on a layer by itself and will not be chopped from the background.

If you duplicate the layer, then whatever you chop from the layer is gone and nothing but transparent pixels will remain. That is how we remove a bike from a background and can then place it on top of another background. JBaker421 has started an excellent tutorial on bike extraction so we are not covering that here. Once you have the bike chopped from the background, it will be on a seperate layer by itself and will look like this:

For this demo we are going to just place the bike into another single background and add some text. Many of the sigs built contain dozens of layers just to build the background such as my sig at the bottom of this post but the process of adding the bike to the background remains the same. We will cover combining images to create backgrounds in the next segment of this tutorial. Ok, proceed by opening your destination background image by clicking "FILE" and selecting "OPEN". Moveit to the side a little and click on your image containing your bike layer. Select "Move" tool and click and hold the bike layer and drag it to it's new background. Continue to move the bike with the "Move" tool until it is in place. Now it will be a part of the new background. Resize the bike to fit it's new surroundings by clicking "EDIT / TRANSFORM" and holding "SHIFT" key while dragging the corners of the selection box to adjust size. After adjusting size, feel free to select the move tool and move again if necessary. Here is my results of chopping bike from old background and resizing smaller to fit:

Now to finish up, let's add some text on a top layer. Select your text tool and then click on the color square up at the top bar to select text color. Once color is chosen click in the image and start typing text. Change size and font as necessary. Once text is typed, click on the text layer in the layer pallette to close the text job. Adding a drop shadow to a layer is handy, especially for text. One way to simply do that is to make sure that the text layer is the active layer and click on the small " f " at the bottom left side of the layer pallette to bring up the layer blending options. Select drop shadow and just use the default setting. Click okay. Here is the results:

That concludes Part 2 of this tutorial, stay tuned for more on combining layers to create unusual backgrounds in Part 3.

Bonehead · #3 01-15-2008, 11:17 PM

The subject of combining images to create great backgrounds is what we will cover here. This is a beginner tutorial so I will not get too indepth on this topic. For demo purposes, I will combinefour images into one background then place a bike in the new background. Here are the images:

Layer 1 - Orange Sunset Right click and save this image

Layer 2 - Blue Palm Trees Right click and save this image

Layer 3 - Eagle Head Download this .psd file
http://uploadpsd.com/file/19123.psd

Layer 4 - HD Logo Download this .psd file
http://uploadpsd.com/file/19131.psd

You would open Layer 1 and duplicate layer by dragging background layer to the "New Layer" Icon at bottom of the layer palette. Delete the original background image by dragging to the trash can at the bottom of the layer palette. This will leave you with an editable layer which we will call the final image.

Now open the Layer 2 image and drag contents to the final image. Now you have two layers. Set the opacity of layer 1 to 83% on the layer palette. On Layer 2, change the layer mode to Luminosity @ 100% opacity. Image should look like this, pretty kewl huh...

Open up Layer 3 - Eagle image (19123.psd) and eagle layer to the final image. You should have three layers now. The eagle needs to be reversed so let's make sure that the eagle layer is active in the final image and then click "EDIT / TRANSFORM / FLIP HORIZONTAL". Select the "MOVE" tool and move image to the far right side. Set layer mode to (Linear Burn @ 69%) in the layer palette. Now your image should look like this:

Open Layer 4 - HD Logo .psd and drag contents to the final image. Move logo to the top left corner and set the opacity to 49% in the layer palette. Congratulations, you now have a decent looking background to insert a chopped bike. Here is what your image would look like with the bike inserted.

This is the completed .psd http://uploadpsd.com/file/19124.psdso that you can see the layers if you are having a problem getting your's to work. Try to follow the steps above so that you will know how to manipulate each layer and make the necessary changes to acheive the desired result.

When you understand the basic layer theory then you can use it to adjust the final image any way that you want it. For example, I would screen the HD logo into the background, apply an overlay layer over the bike layer to warm up the bike colors and blend with the surroundings better. I would also plant the bike better by building a surface for it to sit on and adding a shadow for a more realistic effect. Here is the direction that I would head.

Hope you have a little better understanding of the basics of layer use now. Have a great day!

Keeg · #4 01-16-2008, 08:46 AM

PS guys- First off, all of your work is awesome.Unbelievable talent here.

I check in here as I am a beginner with PS. Just like to say thanks for the detailed tuts thatall of you guys do. I realize how much time and effort goes into preparing and illustrating these and I for one appreciate it. I find your instructions and snapshots much easier to follow than any manuals read to date.

Bonehead-The layers tutorial could not have come at a better time. Working with layers was frustrating the hell out of me. I think this willbe a big help.

Much appreciated..

Bonehead · #5 01-16-2008, 08:52 AM

That makes it all worthwhile Keeg, Thanks for your input.

JBaker421 · #6 01-16-2008, 04:10 PM

Really good stuff, Bonehead. Thanks for all of the hard work.

I would encourage any readers to ask questions. I can't see any that need answering, but I'm surprised at how many edits I do to mine before I stop getting PM's with questions.

I like your writing style, Bonehead. It's simple and to the point.

What if we'd had all of these 101's when we started, lmao?

Ezy_43 · #7 01-16-2008, 05:12 PM

Great tutorial Bonehead! I am starting to see how it all works. I am so slower than moleasses though.

2ForTheRoad · #8 01-16-2008, 05:49 PM

Great tut Bonehead, cool stuff.

jeb_cfl · #9 01-16-2008, 06:07 PM

Thanks for the post, I'm still having trouble with the first crop. I've tried 3 times and some part of the background always moves with the bike crop.

I will continue working with it. I'm looking forward to moving on to these types of steps in the future.

Thanks to you and all the others who have posted help threads.

It has renewed my interest in Photoshop.

JB

Bonehead · #10 01-16-2008, 06:13 PM

jeb_cfl, explain exactly what you are having a problem doing and one of us will probably be able to help.