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Originally Posted by blumesan
Oh dear, Jules you need to get more than just a foot into digital imaging before you start to concern yourself with layers. I had the head start of digital processing scanned film for several years before I, very recently, stepped up to a digital camera. Start out with something like PhotoShop Elements (which, I believe, doesn't use layers). The internet, and this forum, is loaded with references to tutorials and guides for someone just starting out. Have heart. Layers will come.
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Hi Mike, Hi Jules,
Excellent advise: start with PhotoShop Elements (current version 5.0), it *does* have 'layers', and will 'prepare' you in a great -and fairly inexpensive - way for the 'full monty' (PS CS2).
To understand the concept of 'layers': think about them as a stack of negatives upon each other, you can only see the toplayer, but you can alter little things in each different layer: for example: a portrait, the 'background' or bottom layer is the original, layer one is *just* the skin, selected and copied to a new layer, to adjust/smoothen it, layer two is *just* the eyes, also selected and copied to a new layer, to adjust the eye-white colour, 'paint highlight' and lighten the iris, etc, etc. The layers can be 'full' (so you do not see what's behind them in the underlying layers) or you can give them less opacity, so that part of the background still 'shines through' (you use the layer as a 'blend').
By using layers, if you do an adjustment and decide it is too, or too little, you can go back to that specific layer and change it, without having to redo the whole process. When you save your file as a .PSD, the layer-structure gets saved with it, so you can go back to the file and do more adjustments -per layer- later.
To save it as a .JPG, you have to first 'flatten' the layers, as the JPG file format doesn't support layers.
...hope this explains a little, *my* €0.02 worth...
Kindest regards!
Max@Home