Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

144 Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

Understanding Layers

Elements lets you perform lots of different maneuvers right in the Layers palette.

You can turn the visibility of layers off and on, change the order in which layers are

stacked, link layers together, change the opacity of layers, add and delete layers—

the list goes on and on. The rest of this chapter covers all these options and more.

The Background

The bottom layer of any image is a special kind of layer called the background.If

you bring any image or photo into Elements, the first time you open it, you’ll see

its one existing layer is called Background. (That’s assuming that nobody else has

already edited the file in Elements and changed things.) The name Background is

only logical because whatever else you do will be on top of this layer.

NOTE There are two exceptions to the first-layer-is-always-the-background rule. First, if you cre-

ate a new image by copying something from another picture, you’ll just have a layer called “Layer

0.” Background layers can’t be transparent, so if you choose the Transparency option when creat-

ing a file from scratch, you’ll have a Layer 0 instead of a Background layer.

Content-wise, the background can be totally plain or busy, busy, busy. A Back-

ground layer doesn’t mean that it literally contains the background of your photo-

graph—your entire photo can be a Background layer. It’s entirely ...