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.

Click and the sample will now become the foreground color that you can work with.

For this educational tutorial, get an eyedropper sample to get your new foreground color in the color picker. Now drag the background layer of this photo to the new layer icon.

This will duplicate the layer so you can change some pixels on.

Switch back to the background layer by clicking on it so it’s highlighted in the layers palette. Now press the new layer icon to create a new and blank layer above the background layer.

Now you can ‘fill’ this new layer with your foreground color several ways in which I teach. For now go to Edit: Fill and choose the default foreground color and press OK. This will fill the layer with the new color you have chosen from the eyedropper tool.

Now this blank layer is filled with your foreground color.

Select the original copy you made in the layers palette which should be above the fill layer.

Now click on the new layer mask icon.

What you are going to do is simply ‘hide’ pixels by using the layer mask; they’re still there just hidden. By hiding some of the pixels on this layer you can let the layer beneath blend into this layer.

Grab your gradient tool with black as the foreground color and choose foreground to transparent as shown.

http://www.ajaxtime.com/?p=435 Here’s how to use the singular marquee tools; yes they actually do serve a purpose.

Use them when you want to select just a single pixel wide or long across the entire document. You must be on an active layer (that you want to copy from) to do this.  Just click where you want in the image and then Ctrl J to get a new layer of this 1 pixel selection.

Another note: If you have many layers that you want to copy with your marquee (or any selection) you’ll want to use Edit: copy merged; this will ensure that you use all visible layers.

Use Edit Free Transform.  With the transform bars just drag them all the way to the edge of the document. You’re just stretching out this one pixel representation.

Note that the pixels being stretched do represent the range of color across the width or height of the selection; orange for the sky, etc…

This technique is used all the time in techno-collages and flyers, etc. With your help we can help oversaturate the world with too many pixel stretches.

Press enter to apply the ‘transformation’.

You can also apply the same technique to the horizontal marquee tool.

Toggle through different tools with the Shift and keyboard shortcut key. Note that because the single marquees don’t have a keyboard shortcut next to them (they aren’t worthy enough) they aren’t included in the tool switching.

An important note when doing all of this: you must have an active, visible layer selected/highlighted in the layers palette. You cannot copy from a hidden layer.

You’ll have to switch back to the original image (background layer) in the layers palette and hide the first stretch pixel layer (unless you want to actually do a pixel stretch off of that). Then go through with the stretch method.

This is a very important point for beginners…if you’re wondering what’s going on, there’s a good chance you need to check your layers palette to make sure everything’s kosher. If you think it would help to sink this information in even more than you definitely will want the Basic Photoshop DVD training with over 8 hours of quality Photoshop training. Many techniques and tools are also taught in combination so you get comfortable with complete operational efficiency.

Edit: Free Transform again.

Now make a general selection by dragging the lasso around your subject.

Try to keep it as close as you can. You have to go all the way around the subject to meet endpoints to close off the selection.

This is a basic and old school way of making selections which you must understand. There are much ‘better’ ways which I cover in the Basic Photoshop training but once again; imperative that you understand the fundamentals and grow from there.

Once you have made a selection around your subject, switch to the moVe tool as shown.

Now you can place the cursor inside the selection and ‘move’ it. Try doing this and dragging it around.  See how the space is left there where she used to be?

If you’re wondering where the actual water and sidewalk went then I can’t help you (but yes you could fix it).

Go to the History palette and undo your last command of move to put the subject back in place.

To work with your new selection on it’s own, go to Layer: New: Layer via copy. This places the selection onto it’s own layer (very important to understand).

You can also right click when you are on a marquee or lasso tool and choose Layer via Copy to put the selection onto its own layer. There are ways to edit the (lasso) selection which are covered in Basic Photoshop training and other tutorials here.

Now you have basically duplicated your subject and put it onto its own layer. Here I’ve got her on her own layer (you can see the invisible space around her in her layer on the palette).

Remember that there are better, more accurate ways of selecting which we’ll get to. It takes a steady hand to use the lasso.

Here you can enter a new name if you want. Press OK and you have an exact duplicate no matter the file size.

Here is the duplicate..

Remember that you can highlight only a portion of the text and make alterations to it such as changing it to a different color.

If you right click on the top of the document window you have some options to choose from. You can duplicate the document right from here or go straight to the image or canvas size, etc.

Bring up the Image size dialog box (also under Image: Image size). Now change the dimensions.

Try entering an amount that’s half of what is there. When you have constrain proportions on, it will scale the image down automatically to the proportionate value so you only need to change one of the entry boxes.

Here I’ve gone from 800 to 400 @ 90 dpi (the original resolution). You’ll notice that obviously the image is smaller and half the size that it used to be.  Note: Get the Basic Photoshop training program if you want to hear my version of Dr. Evil’s “pretty standard…”

In this case I’m using the clone stamp tool. By alt-clicking on a good part to determine that as the source point, I can then use the clone stamp to ‘clone’ or ‘paint in’ the good parts over the bad parts. Cloning is taking the pixel data from one area and transferring it to another.

This is fairly easy to touchup here because it is black. Good cleanup jobs can sometimes take a longer time, like if you’re professionally ‘repairing’ your old photos. Photoshop’s got the tools to handle it though, be assured.

Anytime you are going to alter pixels you need to ask yourself if you need to make a backup layer. In this case I’ve done the general repairing first ON the background layer itself because that’s how I now want to keep the digital version of this image. You can then duplicate the layer by dragging it to the new layer icon as shown.

There are several different filters and adjustments you can make depending on the different scenarios you have. Your knowledge of these tools and experience with them will continue to make you a better Photoshop user. To get a complete grasp on all of these tools then make sure to grab my Basic Photoshop training where you get it all.

In this case I’m using the Dust & Scratches filter which is under the Filter: Noise menu.

This filter will get rid of dust and scratches by causing a light blur around disparate pixels that are out of place. Radius of 1 pixel keeps it to 1 pixel around the specks. Threshold deals with the intensity of the blurring out effect.around each of speckles radius’. Basically adjust the threshold until you are happy with a very low radius (ie. 1). Remember you can turn the preview on and off and zoom in in the dialog box to get a comparison view.

A threshold setting under 60 should do a good job for you of getting rid of extraneous pixels.

Once you apply and run a filter, you can simply press Ctrl F to run the same commands again. It is shown here if you want to manually re-run any filter (on the same or different layer).

Oftentimes you’ll note that the effect is too strong. Since you have created a duplicate layer what you can do is just lower the opacity. This will allow the two layers to blend together, bringing back more of the original and softening the effect.

Remember that you can make a selection and run a filter on just that part of a layer.

This background looks like it could use some work (yes that’s me in the middle on new year’s ‘96). I’m selecting it with the magic wand on ‘add to selection’.

Now that the background is selected and I’m on the proper layer in the layers palette I can do some stuff to it.

Here I can run a filter just on this selected area as I previously described. It will not affect the rest of the image. Note that in the preview box it doesn’t distinguish between the selection that’s been made and the rest of the image (maybe in Photoshop 9??).

I’m using the Gaussian blur filter.

This will help smooth it out more and get rid of some more moire from the scan in.

Remember that you will have to deselect something quite often so get used to the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl/Cmd ‘D’ or you can use the menu method as shown.

Now I’m switching to the clone stamp tool. I’m going to get rid of that white spot and replace/clone it with the wall.

I’ll clone it on both layers. If you have a layer on a lower opacity and do something such as cloning it won’t appear at full opacity either. Since this white paper mark wasn’t fixed earlier, I have to fix it in both layers so I’m going to select the background layer to make it active and also clone that layer by alt clicking on a good part of the wall and cloning it over the white spot.

If you’re really a beginner you can do a quick contrast correction by choosing Image: Adjustments: Auto Levels.

What you should get used to in order to become a really thorough and competent Photoshop user is to not be afraid of the levels command. This gives you much control over the exposure and contrast of the image (the layer that you are on). Bringing both sliders in will increase the contrast. Be sure to check out the Levels tutorial or get my Basic Photoshop video training (or both hey).

When using the crop tool (see the crop tutorial) plan on using it for permanence that this is the size that you want it now framed to (or you can save a copy).

I could crop it down even more if I wanted to but you get the idea here. There are many things you can do to keep working on and improving your images.

Remember you have the history palette and you can create snapshots of your work along the way (explained elsewhere).

Here is the original and the touchup. You can click at the top of the history palette as shown to get the original back but be VERY careful; if you make another move you’ll wipe out your entire history and start over; its safer to create a snapshot and then go back to the original view.

I’ve purposely made it a little more contrasty than I should but you get the idea.

You can also use the patch tool…there’s just so many options in Photoshop. You are fully armed in Photoshop CS (Creative Suite aka ‘8’) and with my training.

You can fix up blotches of bad areas and patch them with good areas (see patch tutorial). There are often many ways to get to the same result.

Spice things up a bit by adding some appropriate and complimentary text (find a nice font). Use you T text tool and type something in along with your character palette by your side.  Now add a nice drop shadow (once again, mandated by law in most states). Don’t get caught NOT adding a drop shadow unless your typography intention is meant not to have it.

Use the default or adjust the settings to your liking (what looks ‘right’). The shortest way to the drop shadow is through the lower left icon in the layers palette…see thine own path apprentice.

Since we already have a selection we’re going to get rid of a certain part of the selection and keep the part that we want to keep.

Choose Subtract from Selection from the options bar.

Now go ahead and create a lasso selection all the way around the area that you want to get rid of from the overall selection. It doesn’t even have to be pretty AT ALL, as long as you keep the marching ants inside the area.

Just work your way all the way around the area you want to deselect. With the polygonal it will draw straight lines and you click to add a point to move it in another direction. What’s weird and cool is that you can click ‘outside of’ the actual document with the polygonal lasso to help work your way around to the start point to close it off. Try this out for yourself.

Now that you have ‘subtracted’ or ‘deselected’ that area…

…find any other areas that you want deselected, go over there and use the same method to enclose off that area to deselect it from the overall selection.

In this case I am getting rid of the dead palm tree leaves and wanting to retain just the main subject herself.  It’s important to understand these concepts of knowing how to modify a selection.

Now with the moVe tool, remember that you can move the selection from within the selected area. In this case we already have a duplicate layer on top so we’re just moving that selected version of her over.

Here you can see in the layers palette I’ve turned off the layer and you can see the selection that we’ve made.

Go back in History to move her back. You can also use Edit: Undo Move.

Now let’s do something else. Once you have a selection you can save it a few ways. One of the ways is by right clicking (when on the appropriate tool such as lasso) and choosing Make Work Path…

This will convert the selection you have into a ‘Path’. Under the Paths palette you can see the work path that you’ve now created.

A path is one way of ‘storing’ your selection (in this case) and takes up a nanobit of space in the total file size because it is basically a mathematical equation. It saves much more space than duplicating and retaining a copy of the layer (fyi).

You can see the hard edged line of the ‘Path’ around your subject when you have ‘Work Path’ highlighted in the Paths palette.

Aren’t you glad you don’t have to learn all this stuff the hard way? Don’t be stubborn like I did. Just keep on learning everything you can with tools like the Basic Photoshop DVD training of mine. It’s loaded with tons of Photoshop training for your educational needs.

Once you have work path you can make it back into a selection by highlighting it and then right clicking and choosing Make Selection…

Press enter again if you don’t want to feather (add a light fuzzy blur around the edges) and get your exact selection back (recommended for now).  You can edit it as a selection or with the path editing tools.

In the Paths palette you can click off of the path and onto the empty space as shown to de-select the work path and click on it to re-select or show the work path.

Paths are also covered in depth in my full video training. You’ll also want to understand them b/c you can make your own work paths (ending up in a selection or a custom shape) from scratch and they are used all the time in vector shapes and design.

then go to Edit: Copy.

This will retain that data of the selected area. Now go to File: New,

Press OK when the dialog box comes up to create a new document.

This feature (of copy and paste) has probably been around since the beginning of digital image editing and Photoshop 1.0 I’m sure. It’s good to learn the shortcuts Ctrl C, Ctrl N and Ctrl V.

It’s important to note that when you copy a selected area the new document will be created based on the dimension or proportion of the selected area on an X and Y basis.  Because the selected area reached the vertical and horizontal limits of the original image, the new document will be created with the same dimensions as the original document. If you want to create a new document you can either Image: Duplicate or select a layer that covers the entire image dimensions such as the background layer by Select: all and making sure the background layer is selected in the layers palette and then you can create an exact dimension copy.

Now Edit: Paste 

and you can see that we did select the ‘background’. When you paste it will automatically put that selection onto its own layer.

Well what if we made this selection of the background but wanted to select the woman as the subject? (Usually the idea but this is training to get you fully versed…)  Easy, just right click (when on a marquee or lasso tool) in the original document and then you can choose Select Inverse.

This will now select the areas that haven’t been selected which in this case happens to be the subject and the dead palm trees.

When making selections you’ll most often want to select the easiest way and use the tools together to get a selection. It all depends on the circumstances. With difficult backgrounds sometimes there is no easy way. The advanced art of the selection will be covered in depth in the upcoming AdvancedPhotoshop.com in the next few months.  There is plenty of selection training in the Basic Photoshop training program.

Go to the moVe tool in the upper right corner of the toolbar and drag this selection (the main subject layer) into the new document. Here in the layers palette you can see that I have both of the separate selections on their own layers.

After you’ve made a selection and put it on it’s own layer and you plan on making more changes to it; you might want to first make a duplicate copy by dragging it to the new layer icon and work on this version of the layer.

With the eraser tool you can go in and clean up areas of the selection that maybe got skipped over before.

Remember that you can change the size of the eraser brush in the options bar or by using the [bracket] keys.

On the duplicated layer go ahead and erase the dead palm trees (or whatever is on your sample image). Photos.com doesn’t want me actually distributing these images but you can get these same ones with full access from their website. It’s well worth it if you’re at all serious about Photoshop and especially graphic design.

You can use some more of the basic selection techniques such as right clicking and choosing Similar or grow after using the magic wand tool to select areas of blue that might be remaining.

In using these, once again if you have accidentally selected areas that you don’t want selected, you can use ‘subtract from selection’ in the options bar of the lasso (or marquee tools).

Then simply lasso around the area you want de-selected.

See how easy it is for you to learn? Do you have any idea how long it took me to fully understand this simple concept?  Please use the leverage of other people’s knowledge to get you where you want to be. You can leverage my guruistic knowledge of Photoshop with the Basic Photoshop DDV training program.

You can use the eraser to get rid of these spots but if they’re too small you might want to select them first ie. with the magic wand tool and then you can Ctrl X them out of the picture to clean it all up.

Now find another picture which you think would make a great background. Now that you have the foreground subject and you’ve essentially removed the background, you can pull in another open image with the moVe tool by dragging it in.

It will automatically appear above whatever layer is selected in the layers palette. In this case it shows up on top (because the previous top layer was highlighted)

so you will have to move its order in the layers palette to beneath the main subject layer to ‘fit’ in the manually created ‘background’ space.

In this case the sunset was appear behind the main subject so if this happens to you remember that you have your transform options under the Edit menu. Go ahead and flip it horizontally.

Now the sunset appears on the other side where there is breathing room for it to be. This is good common design sense which you probably have, it’s just good to know the tools to how to do it!

Grab your tragic wand tool. Get an image with a similarly colored background. These are the easiest to select and the magic wand can maybe live up to it’s name before it becomes tragic again.

Adjust your tolerance setting to capture slight tonal variations in the image area you’re going to select.

Right click on the wand tool and you have a few options. After you have made your initial selection by clicking on a point within the image you can choose Grow or Similar. ‘Similar’ will take and expand the selection across the entire image looking for similar tonal range.

Don’t let the marching ants confuse you. All you’re doing is wanting to end up with a ‘selection’ of the blue background wall.

Now try right click and ‘Grow’. This will expand the selection area that is closer to the latest wave/click of the wand. Note that you should be on “Add to selection” in the options bar (otherwise you’ll just get one new chance to make a correct selection each time).

On ‘add to selection’ you can just keep clicking on certain areas that may be a little darker like these cracks in the wall to ‘add’ them to the selection job you’re doing.

You can use the zoom tool to get in there for a closer look and get more accurate selections.

The Hand tool works great when you are zoomed in. You can also hold down the space bar to temporarily get the hand tool when using a tool. Switch back to your wand (W) as your selection will still be there (unless you stray from the Basic training and lose your selection already before we move on).

Click in smaller areas like this to fully get accurate coverage when zoomed in.