Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature

Chapter Three. Adjustment Layers

At this point, you’ve seen how useful layers are for making adjustments to your images. But we’ve only been working with regular layers. There’s also something in Photoshop called an adjustment layer. It’s a different type of layer that has really changed the way people edit their images, because they let you work non-destructively. Even better, adjustment layers let you apply adjustments to selective parts of your photos so you don’t have to apply the adjustments to the whole image—just part of it, if you want. They’re way cool and they’re easy to start using.