Add colors to Your Dream.....

This tutorial is an introduction to working with layer sets and a continuation of understanding layers.

In this psd.net finished tutorial design (which is available for download; go here to get free access) we are looking at the layers palette. Here you can see that I’ve created different layer sets.

Layer sets are simply folders and help you organize your layers (also so the palette doesn’t become so cluttered).

You can open and close layer sets by clicking on the arrow. You can drag any layer into a layer set. Once you have a layer or layers that are in a layer set you can move them all at once around the document when the layer set itself is highlighted in the layers palette.

Here I am moving all of the layers at once.

You can still move and work on individual layers separately by highlighting a layer within the layer set. You can then move it around to where you’d like it to be. For text layers you can double click on the layer icon to enter the text editing field for changes.

You can also hide layers within a layer set by clicking on the seeing eyeball to turn off the layers visibility. It’s important to note that you can still move it around when it’s invisible and it will also move with all of the layers when you move a layer set.

You can also hide entire layer sets by turning the visibility off. If all layers are turned ‘on’ within the layer set then you just click the layer set visibility to bring all of them ‘back’ from the netherworld.

You can right click on a layer set (as with layers themselves) and choose layer set properties.

Here you can name the layer set (or you can double click on the name itself) or even add a color to help organize and make things perrtier.

Often times I’m so busy with designing that I don’t name my layers. Some people find it annoying to see lots of layer13, layer35, etc.’s but it’s up to you if you want to name your layers. Sometimes I’ll do it after designing to help clean things up or just on a few layers when I need to distinguish it from the others.

Linking layers is easy and allows them to be moved or transformed together. Just click on the link space when you want to link another layer to the currently highlighted layer. Remember you can also right click anywhere on the document when you are on the moVe tool to choose from layers that are right beneath that point.

Note that these layers are linked together within the layer set and those are the only ones that are moving.

You can still move layers around in the layer order in the palette. Here you can see that I’m moving the oval fill shape to above the text layer

so that it is now hiding the text layer because of the layer order. The layers are still linked and will move together.

Here’s another finished tutorial design from psd.net. I’ve had to clean up the layer order of this because it was a little messy and put some layers in sets such as ‘unused’. Do this if you don’t want to throw layers in the trash. Note that the big ‘II’ layer is beneath the separate text layers above it yet above the gold custom gradient background.

Remember you can turn layers on and off which often help determine ‘visually’ where they are located in the document. Now try changing the layer order. You can actually use this .psd file because all of the psd.net tutorials are available for download when you sign up for the free PSDer ezine.

Move the ‘II’ layer above a text layer or two.

It’s important to let these basic fundamentals sink in. Layer order is extremely important and you must have an natural instinct or understanding of it to become a pro Photoshop user or graphic designer.

If you have separate text layers, try placing it between them in the layers palette.

The menu commands are under Layer: Arrange...Bring forward, etc. But I recommend you keep using the layers palette.

Create a new layer set by clicking on the folder icon as shown.

You can then drag these text files into this folder for more organization. Use layer sets to keep similar layers together.

You can see that the layers are located in the ‘opened’ folder because they appear white instead of grey.

In Photoshop CS you can now put layer sets within layer sets within layer sets.  Here I’ve put all of the layers and sets into this one master layer set.

How clean is that? Too bad my deskspace isn’t that clean (or maybe it’s just hiding the mess underneath).  Here I’m moving the entire layer set at once with the moVe tool.

You can open the master layer set and then go in and work on other layer sets or highlight individual layers to work on them (move, adjust, transform, filter, etc.)