Take a note book or any book and start flipping the pages, you are now browsing through the layers of a book. Same is with Photoshop layers, only you click with your mouse instead of licking your finger and flipping pages of paper. But in many ways layers are similar to paper.
Step 01.
Main advantage of layers is working on the same image and still working on a completely new image. Let me explain, lets say you have a photo, I will use the Ducky from the Photoshop sample folder (You can find this image in a directory called Samples placed where you have installed yours application), here he is, all nice and yellow:
You can, of course, use any image you wish to use. Now I am not sure what I wish to do with this image but I know I do not wish to destroy the original file, so I make a copy of it. Well that?s something new, you say, but wait before you judge it too soon. Instead of copying the file to another location you can just duplicate the layer and there you are. Two ways you can do this go Layer>Duplicate layer, this will duplicate the layer you are currently working on or the one that is selected, or you can click and drag your layer to the layer icon
in the bottom of the layer palette, the second one from the right. The new layer will have the same name as the original but with copy suffix.You can rename the layer by double clicking the layer name and type what ever you wish, I named mine Ducky, really original, yeah! There you go, you have learned how to make a copy of the existing layer and how to rename the layer, way to go!
Step 02.
Create a new layer by going Layer>New Layer, or by using keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+N, or by clicking the New Layer icon . Any of the previous is fine, but there is difference between first two and the last one. First two will bring the dialog box like this:
Here you can type the name for your new layer, choose the color (useful for paths) and decide on the Mode or opacity, but you can worry about that later. Name this new layer ?whatever?.
OK since the Ducky is our hero for today, we are going to give him some cool background, something fast and colorful, check this.
Step 03.
Here is the trick you are going to use a lot. Click on the Ducky layer and choose Magic Wand Tool from the tools palette by clicking on its icon
or by pressing the ?W? key. Now click on a white space surrounding Ducky to create the selection around him. This will only work on solid colors with no gradient, try it on any other part of the Ducky and see what happens.
If you can see and army of marching ants, you are doing just fine.
Step 04.
Click again on layer ?whatever?, I got?ya there didn?t I, ha! This is the last, empty layer you?ve created in the Step 02. Fill this layer with black. First press D on your keyboard to set default colors (black foreground and white background) and than press ALT+BACKSPACE and there you go.
Selection you made in previous step defined the space for the black color, cool ha?
Step 05.
Now we use the filter, finally.
Go Filter> Noise> Add Noise and use these settings
Now go Filter>Blur>Radial Blur and use these settings:
Here is the result:
Step 06.
All you have to do is put some nice color to it and you are all done.
Go Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation or press CTRL+U, this will bring the Hue/Saturation menu, check the colorize box in the bottom right and play with the sliders, here is my end result:
I have added another layer under the ?whatever? and filled it with dark red to loose white showing through, deselect it by pressing CTRL+D and save your work, the most important of it all.
That?s it, you have learned how to create new layer, how to duplicate the existing one, rename it and apply filter to separate layers without touching the ones you do not need, not bad for a beginner.
See you people some other time in some other tutorial,
-maliDM-
