How To Layer Photos In Photoshop

Adjustment Layers are a special kind of Photoshop layer. Rather than having content of their own, they accommodate the data on the layers below them. For example, you can use an adjustment layer to increase the brightness or contrast of a photograph without altering the original photograph. They're one of the most important tools to master in Photoshop.

If you aren't familiar with layers and layer masks, exist sure to cheque out our explainer on the subject–and if y'all're new to Photoshop, you should likewise check out our 8-part beginner's guide before standing.

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Not-Destructive Editing: One of the Most Important Photoshop Concepts You Can Learn

When you lot're working in Photoshop, it'southward never skilful to dispense the pixels in the original paradigm. If y'all mess up, you might not be able to undo things. Instead, you want to employ non-destructive tools and techniques. Adjustment layers are one of these tools. They alter the image beneath, but you can ever turn them off or alter them, so your original image stays untouched. You aren't stuck with what y'all've washed.

For case: if yous destructively convert an prototype to black and white, you're throwing away all the color data. You aren't able to go back and modify it back to color if yous salve the file. If you use the Blackness and White adjustment layer, though, you tin go in at any phase and adjust how each colour is converted to gray—or turn off the layer entirely to get your color image back. (This is likewise why backups are of import for any mission-critical files.)

The Five Basic Adjustment Layers (and How to Use Them)

To apply an adjustment layer, click on its icon in the Aligning Layers panel. You can and so dial in the outcome you want in the Properties panel. The controls for each adjustment layer are different and specific to its purpose.

Each aligning layer automatically comes with a layer mask. That way, you can accept it affect certain areas of your prototype instead of the entire affair.

Photoshop has 16 different adjustment layers. However, if yous're just staring out, there are only five you lot demand to exist familiar with. As you go into more advanced Photoshop work, you'll acquire to utilise the other x.

Brightness/Contrast

The Brightness/Dissimilarity adjustment layer is the simplest style to adapt the exposure or contrast of an image. Elevate the Effulgence slider to the correct to brighten things, drag it to the left to darken things. It's the aforementioned for the Dissimilarity slider: elevate it to the right to add dissimilarity, drag it to the left to take it away.

Levels

The Levels aligning layer is some other way to adjust exposure and contrast. The histogram represents all the tones in the image.

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Drag the blackness handle under the histogram to the right to darken your image. Drag the white handle to the left to brighten information technology. The greyness handle controls the midtones: drag it to the left to burnish the midtones, and drag information technology to the right to darken them.

In that location are a few more avant-garde options with Levels but, when y'all're starting out, you don't demand to worry about them. Simply play around with the sliders to achieve the effect you want.

Curves

The Curves adjustment layer is the most powerful (and advanced) manner to change exposure and contrast. It's a bit beyond about beginners, withal it'll oftentimes pop up in Photoshop tutorials, so information technology's worth knowing.

The sloped line over the histogram represents the current tones in the image. Changing the slope of the line determines how each group of tones is affected.

Click anywhere on the slope to add together a point. Drag the betoken upward to brighten the respective tones; down to darken them. You can add equally many points equally y'all demand. By manipulating which points you drag up, and which you elevate down, you can add dissimilarity to the epitome.

Once more, this tool is very advanced, but there's a lot you can do with it–you'll meet it in a lot of Photoshop tutorials around the spider web. Bank check out our explainer on histrograms for a more in-depth look on how information technology all works.

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Hue/Saturation

The Hue/Saturation aligning layer is a unproblematic way to adjust the colors in your image. Every color has a hue, saturation, and lightness value. The Hue/Saturation adjustment layer'south sliders correspond to them. Drag the relevant slider around to dispense that attribute of the colors.

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By default, you're editing all the colors every bit a whole. From the dropdown where information technology says Master, you can select any of Photoshop'southward six primary colors—the Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues, and Magentas—to modify on their own. With this, yous can accomplish all sorts of unlike effects.

Black & White

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The Black & White aligning layer is the best way to convert an image to black and white. It has six sliders: one for each of Photoshop's main colors. Each slider controls how that color is converted into grayscale. Drag the relevant slider to the right to darken those colors; drag information technology to the left to burnish them.

Adjustment layers are the best way to modify the tones and colors in your images. But most importantly: they don't change the original pixels then you tin can always go back in and tweak things. Some adjustment layers, like Curves, can be a flake tricky to get to grips with but it'southward worth the endeavor. They're a huge office of most Photoshop work.