Working in Layers

While the intricacies of creating and editing Photoshop layers are beyond the scope of this chapter, it’s worth mentioning some of the benefits of working with layered files. Layers can keep the individual components of a complicated composition from being glued together prematurely, giving you a safety net in case you change your mind. Multiple undo capabilities are great during a working session, but they don’t help if you’ve saved a file and realize—days later—that you’ve inadvertently cropped out something crucial, or performed a color correction that doesn’t look so great.

Layers offer the advantage of providing nondestructive methods for combining images, for creating silhouette and soft-edged effects, and for doing color corrections without permanently altering pixels.