Reco

As my subject stated I am new to Photoshop but not to art. I have PS 7 and I need to understand layers better can someone point me to a good tutorial on layers? [excited]

Welles

Here's a pretty good series. I'm directing you to the first page. Toward the bottom there are links to further expand your understanding of the uses of layers.

http://www.webreference.com/graphics/column32/

Hercules

Reco Welcome to the Forum, and enjoy your stay.

Welles great link, thanks.

Bacardi

Basically, it comes down to this:

To be able to mstore an image in a puter's memory and to make calculations so as to change things, a picture is chopped up into small units like a mosaic. Each unit is called a pixel.

A layer means that you can put a second image on top of the first one, just like you can place a sheet of paper on another one.
The main difference with paper is that Photoshop allows for making the layer more or less transparant so that you see not only what is on the top layer, but also what's on the bottom one. Photoshop also comes with a series of different ways to calculate certain relationships between a pixel on one layer, and a pixel on another layer that is on the same spot. These are called "blend modes".
Thirdly, Photoshop allows you to create a mask (also with partial transparancy effects) that will hide certain parts of the top layer and show other ones so that you can decide what the visible resulft will be. This is called a "layer mask".

Ferlin

I went to the tutorial Welles suggested and tried to the power tips by linking layers. I linked three layers together and with the active on scaled it, but the other 2 layers would not scale along with it. Same way with the the effects. For some reason these aren't working. What am I missing? }P

Ferlin

Never mind I get it . I was selecting the active layer - and that was throwing me off. }P

Rick

Ferlin a bit of a brain fart [bustagut] [bustagut] [bustagut] [bustagut] [bustagut]

Ferlin

Rick..Never heard that expression before I guess I'm pretty gaseous Sometimes I feel like that Sat.Nite Live character..Gilda Radner who says NEVER MIND...
Hey Rick, are you going pro?(maybe you already are a pro for all I know)
but I see your logo thingy. Good luck with it [righton]