The Photoshop Productivity Series: The Productive Workflow

Layers

This book is not intended as a primer on layers in Photoshop, so if you need that, look elsewhere. I’m making the assumption that you are familiar with the basic concept of layers. Just in case, however, I’ll provide a quick overview of why we should use layers. If you are a veteran user of layers, you can skip ahead.

Imagine that you want to add some painted words to a photo. You grab the Brush tool and paint the words you want, save the document, and the job is done (Figure 1.1). Unfortunately, it’s literally done! Once you save and close the document, there’s no going back—other than attempting to erase your work and start over. The simplest way to see this is to look at the Layers panel and note that there’s only one layer, which ...