Introduction to Layers

Layers is a powerful feature found in Elements that, once understood, should dramatically change the way you approach editing your pictures. More importantly, it should also dramatically expand your creative potential.

Layers are used when we want to include more than one element in a file, such as photos, text, clip art, or graphics. They're also important when we want to edit individual parts of an image without affecting the rest of the picture—for example, making one layer more colorful than all the others in the file. Aside from retaining complete editability of all layer components, a layered file must be saved in a special file format—typically a Photoshop (.psd) or a TIFF (.tif) file. These file types can also retain selections and never add compression artefacts (something JPEGs can suffer badly from), plus they have the unique ability to contain multiple versions of the same image within the same file. Let's take a look at...