Can anyone give me a simple workable explanation of layers in digital photography?

Question

What are layers? How do they work? How do you use them? All levels of answers most welcome. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The easiest way to explain Layers is to show you.

I created a FREE Video tutorial on this topic.

Check it out....
http://DigitalPhoto101.com/

I specifically designed some very basic tutorials on Photoshop to help folks get past the basics.

Enjoy!

Answer 2

Its easy to work with layers when you need to give different kinds of effects & again when u add alot of objects to a file. So when u want to work on just one item u need not change everything with it, e.g Designing a Identity card. You can place the pic on a different layer, with a background on a different one & the text on another. In case u make a mistake or dont like the look you neednt change the whole thing.

? hope this helps.

Answer 3

Imagine it this way. Put a piece of clear plastic over your photo. You can copy parts of your photo onto this plastic or draw on it or whatever you want. You can add more pieces of plastic and do limitless things on each piece of plastic. The way you order this plastic effects how the photo looks. Also how much you see each piece of plastic affects things.

Now think of each piece of plastic as a layer. In a nutshell, these are what layers are. Now in the digital world there is much more you can do with layers such as blending two or more together, combining them, masking them, but these are more advanced.

Start by selecting a piece of a photograph... say your friends face with the lasso too using photoshop. Ctrl-C for copy then Ctrl-V for paste. You now have created a separate layer of your friends face. Now adjust the hue to make his face green. Look in your layers pallet and turn on and off that layer to see how it works.