Photoshop.CS.Bible [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Sending a Selection to a Layer

To its credit, Photoshop lets you establish a new layer in roughly a billion ways. If you want to add a selected portion of one image to another image, the easiest method is to Ctrl-drag (Win) or z -drag (Mac) the selection and drop it into its new home, as demonstrated in Figure 12-2. Photoshop makes you a new layer, lickety-split.

Figure 12-2: Ctrl-drag (Win) or z -drag (Mac) a selected portion of an image and drop it into a different image window to introduce the selection as a new layer. As you can see in the Layers palette, the frame becomes a new layer in front of the frightened woman.

When you drop the selection, the selection outline disappears. Not to worry, though. Now that the image resides on an independent layer, the selection outline is no longer needed. You can move the layer using the move tool, as you would move a selection. You can even paint inside what was once the selection by selecting the first of the Lock buttons in the Layers palette. I explain both the move tool and the Lock buttons in greater detail throughout this chapter.

If you want to clone a selection to a new layer inside the same image window — useful when performing complex filter routines and color corrections — choose Layer New Layer Via Copy. Or press Ctrl+J (z -J on the Mac), as in Jump.

Other ways to make a layer

Those are only two of many ways to create a new layer in Photoshop. Here are a few others:

Copy a selection (Ctrl+C or z -C) and paste it into another image (Ctrl+V or z -V). Photoshop pastes the selection as a new layer.

If you want to relegate a selection exclusively to a new layer, choose Layer New Layer Via Cut or press Ctrl+Shift+J (z -Shift-J on the Mac). Rather than cloning the selection, Layer Via Cut removes the selection from the background image and places it on its own layer.

To convert a floating selection — one that you've moved or cloned — to a new layer, press Ctrl+Shift+J (z -Shift-J on the Mac). The Shift key is very important. If you press Ctrl+J (Win) or z -J (Mac) without Shift, Photoshop clones the selection and leaves an imprint of the image on the layer below.

To create an empty layer — to, say, paint a few brushstrokes without harming the original image — choose Layer New Layer or press Ctrl+Shift+N (z -Shift-N on the Mac). Or click the new layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (labeled in Figure 12-3).

Figure 12-3: All but two of the commands in the Layers palette menu are duplicated in the Layer menu.

When you create a new layer, Photoshop positions it in front of the active layer. To create a new layer behind the active layer, Ctrl-click (Win) or z -click (Mac) the new layer icon.

Incidentally, you can also create a new layer by choosing New Layer from the Layers palette menu. But as you can see in Figure 12-3, nearly all the palette commands are duplicated in the Layer menu. The only unique palette commands are Dock to Palette Well, which sends the Layers palette tab to the Options bar, and Palette Options, which lets you change the size of the thumbnails in front of the layer names. Turns out, you can perform the latter technique more easily by right-clicking (Win) or Control-clicking (Mac) in the empty space below the layer names and choosing an option.

If you want to specify a more meaningful name, add the Alt (Win) or Option (Mac) key. Press Ctrl+Alt+J (z -Option-J on the Mac) to clone the selection to a layer, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+J (z -Shift-Option-J on the Mac) to cut the selection, or Alt-click (Option-click on the Mac) the new layer icon to create a blank layer. In any case, you see the dialog box shown in Figure 12-4. Enter a name for the layer. If you like, you can also assign a color to the layer, which is helpful for identifying a layer name at a glance. Then press Enter or Return. (For now, ignore the other options in this dialog box.)

Figure 12-4: Press Alt (Win) or Option (Mac) to force the display of the New Layer dialog box, which lets you name the new layer.

When creating a new layer from the keyboard, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N (z -Shift-Option-N on the Mac) to bypass the dialog box. Alt (Option on the Mac) works both ways, forcing the appearance of the dialog box some times and suppressing it others. The only time it produces no effect is when pasting or dropping an image. Too bad — I for one would get a lot of use out of it.

Duplicating a layer

To clone the active layer, you can choose Layer Duplicate Layer. But that's the sucker's way. The more convenient way is to drag the layer you want to clone, either by its name or its adjacent icon, onto the new layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

To specify a name for the cloned layer or to copy the layer into another image, Alt-drag (Win) or Option-drag (Mac) the layer onto the new layer icon. Always the thoughtful program, Photoshop displays the dialog box shown in Figure 12-5. You can name the cloned layer by entering something in the As option box. To jettison the layer to some other open image, choose the image name from the Document pop-up menu. Or choose New and enter the name for an entirely different image in the Name option box, as the figure shows.

Figure 12-5: You can duplicate the layer into an entirely different image by Alt-dragging (Win) or Option-dragging (Mac) the layer onto the new layer icon in the Layers palette.