Using Layers

Layers is a very powerful feature of Photoshop. Think of layers as a stack of clear acetate films placed one on top of the other. What if you wanted to do a complete makeover of a model's face. You wanted to change her hair color, lipstick, eye color, add eyeglasses or remove eyeglasses, change her hair style, etc. You could do it on one image but if you were able to isolate each of her features and move them to separate layers, you would have a much easier time of it. You could make each change independent of the other elements of the model's face and then combine the layers into one picture. It seems like a lot of work but in the long run is a much quicker way to accomplish the above.

I have a picture on my blog of my three pets - two cats and a dog. They are sitting together without fighting. Impossible!!! But, if I took a picture of each one independently, I could extract each pet onto their own layer and then combine them into one image. I could move the layers around and resize the individual layers to ensure that their sizes relative to each other were correct. That is in fact what I did. Here is what I started with:












Here is the final combination.



















True confession: My wife and I love our pets hence we always take a "8 X 10" copy of this picture with us on our travels.

But let me start with a simple example of using layers to show you how to paint clouds into a clear blue sky in order to enhance the picture. I will be using the Buddha picture that was in the last blog along with the "Lasso" and "Brush" tools in Photoshop Elements.

VIDEO TUTORIAL:


AFTER: