Inside Photoshop® CS

Chapter 4. Layers and Channels

In this chapter, you'll learn

• How the flexibility of layers plays a critical role in editing Photoshop images

• How to organize your work with layer sets

• How to compose image changes with the Layer Mask feature

• How to use Adjustment Layers for color correction

• How to create shapes, vector paths, and clipping paths

• How to use channels to control color

• How to store special image information in alpha channels

Within every image you look at or edit in Photoshop lies the potential for the image to be a composite of “stacks” of images, and they are called layers. Similarly, colors and saved selections can also be part of a saved image file, although you might never see them onscreen, and they are called channels.

The purpose ...