 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
PSC01: Adjustment Layers
Wouldn't it be cool if you could do something such as a levels adjustment to your image, and then later when you find out that you want to do it in a different way, simply change the parameters of that levels command without having to redo things?
Well, adjustment layers might be exactly what you've been looking for.
But first let's bring up the layers palette. If you don't see it, click on Window / Layers in the menu to enable it. Now if you open an image you'll find that a layer called Background will show up in the layers palette.
Let's do something with this image now. When you adjust the levels of an image, do you normally go to the image/adjustments menu and choose the levels command from there? Well, if that's how you did it so far, you're in for a surprise..
At the bottom of Photoshop's layer palette, find the little circle that is half black and half white, and click on it. Now choose the Levels command from that menu, do some adjustments, and click OK. Watch the layers palette now.. did you notice that above your Background layer there is now a Levels layer? Now by simply double-clicking the black and white circle on the levels layer, you can bring the levels command back and do further adjustments. Or if you decide that you don't actually want to do the levels adjustment, just drag the whole layer to the little garbage bin symbol on the bottom of the layers palette and your adjustment layer is gone.
But let's leave the levels adjustment layer there for the time being, and instead add another adjustment layer on top of it. again, click the black and white circle at the bottom of the layer palette, and this time choose the hue/saturation command. Let's use this to increase the colour saturation by dragging the saturation slider a bit to the right.
Do all the adjustments you want in those layers until you're happy.
If you want to be able to come back to your image at a later point in time and do further adjustments, you can now save it in Photoshop's own format by selecting File/Save as and choose the PSD format. Just make sure that in the save options, there's a checkmark next to LAYERS.
If you're happy with the image and you know that you won't do any further adjustments, you can also take a big virtual flat-iron and flatten the image, so that the adjustment layers are turned into a single layer. In order to do this, open the Layer menu, and select Flatten Image.
But be careful, once you saved the image, this cannot be undone, so if you want to flatten the image, it makes sense to have an original copy of your work stored somewhere else.
