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One of the fundamental values of working in layers is the ability to isolate image areas for change. This gives you the freedom to correct image areas independently, and revisit those changes as part of image development and workflow. Once you begin to use layers to isolate changes, you can make adjustments, and then fine-tune adjustments in ways that are impossible using selection alone.

Somewhere just beyond isolating objects into their own layers and more advanced blending lies the genus of layer-based effects. Effects encompass a broad range of enhancements and adjustments from solid color fills and stroked outlines, to drop shadows and bevels, to combinations of these that create more complex layer styles. Application can be wild effects (often used with type, see Figure 5.1 ) to more moderate doses that add separation between image objects and subtle image enhancement.

We have looked at quite a lot of things that layers can do, and the important thing now is to continue to follow through using the techniques you have learned. We looked at the entire process of evaluating and correcting an image in Chapter 9. One step beyond just working out the issues with a single image is combining images for a finished result.

Yet another means of combining and targeting content changes can be found lurking in the palette in the Photoshop Layer Styles. We have already looked at some of what the Layer Styles dialog can do when exploring layer styles in Chapter 5. However, Blend If is a more advanced feature on the Layer Styles dialog that offers opportunities separate from masking and clipping that we will definitely want to explore in order to round out the layer experience ( Figure 7.1 ).

Image components are separations of an image into distinct color or tone parts. We looked at separating an image into brightness (luminosity) and color in Chapter 6, but there are many ways to separate images into other types of components, including color components of light (red, green and blue) and ink (cyan, yellow, magenta and black). Separating images into components can offer advantages in making corrections, creating masks, calculations and other tasks such as converting images to black and white.

Understanding how to work with layers starts with understanding some basics about what layers are, what their capabilities are, what functions are in the layers palette, and how to locate all that you need to apply basic layer power. In this chapter we explore the layers palette, see how all the basic layer functionality fits into the layers palette and menus, learn how to create layers, access and apply basic layer functions, and look at how to adjust the layer viewing preferences. We'll run through a hand's-on no-knowledge-necessary example of using layers and see some simple effects that can be achieved in the world of layers. Even if you feel comfortable with layers, this chapter will help make sure we are all starting off with the same basic familiarity with layers and how they are accessed as tools. With that under our belt, we can look forward to applying layers to images.