Inside Photoshop® CS

Removing Large Image Areas with Layer Mask

Layers are one of Photoshop's most consistently valuable features. Had Adobe never added layers, Photoshop would have gone the way of Pong (a very old computer game). I always tell my students, “If there is only one thing you need to know about Photoshop, know layers!”

If you are new to Photoshop or are not familiar with layers, point your learning compass backward for a moment. Here's a real-life example that reveals the value of layers. In 1994, using Photoshop version 2.5 (no layers), I composited sections of 12 images into 1 image. The process took 40 hours! Two years later, using version 3.0 (the first version with layers), I re-created that same image in less than 1 hour.

As previously mentioned, ...