The Lock Transparency icon (which looks like a checkerboard) at the top of the Layers palette gets in my way most often (because I forget it’s turned on). Lock Transparency prevents you from changing the transparency of areas. Each layer has its own Lock Transparency setting. Therefore, if you turn on the Lock Transparency icon for one layer and then switch to another layer, the Layers palette will display the setting for the second layer, which might be different from the first one.
Try using the Eraser tool when Lock Transparency is turned on—it will mess with your mind! Because the Eraser tool usually makes areas transparent (by completely deleting them), it will start painting instead when Lock Transparency is turned on. It will fill any areas you drag over with the current background color. However, if you paint across an area that’s transparent, it doesn’t change the image at all (because the transparent areas are being preserved). You can see how it can get in your way if you forget you turned it on.
Try this: Open a photo, and delete areas around it using the Eraser tool. To accomplish this, you’ll have to change the name of the background first (you can’t poke a hole in the background, but you can on a layer); then make sure Lock Transparency is turned off. Otherwise, you can’t make areas transparent. Now use the Eraser tool to remove the areas that surround the subject of the photo, and then choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a really high setting. You’ll notice that the edge of the image fades out and blends with the transparent areas surrounding it. Now, choose Edit > Undo and try doing the same thing with the Lock Transparency option turned on. Notice that the edge cannot fade out because Photoshop will not change the transparency with this option turned on.
If you have a picture of Elvis, and you want to make Elvis twins, just drag the name of the layer onto the New-Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This icon has two purposes: It will duplicate a layer if you drag one on top of it, or it will create a new empty layer if you just click it. You can also hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) when dragging a layer up or down within the layers stack, or type Command-J (Mac) or Ctrl-J (Windows) to duplicate the currently active layer. Just make sure you don’t have a selection active; otherwise, this command will copy only the area that is selected instead of the whole layer.
Deleting Layers
If you’ve created a document that looks a little cluttered, you can delete a layer by dragging its name onto the Trash icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Or, if you have a long distance to drag to get your layer in the trash, try Option-clicking (Mac) or Alt-clicking (Windows) the Trash icon instead (the Option or Alt key prevents a warning dialog box from appearing). However, this icon does not work like the trash on a Mac or the recycle bin in Windows. Once you put something in it, you can’t get it back (that is, without resorting to the History palette).
Transforming Layers
To rotate, scale, or distort the active layers, choose one of the options in the Edit > Transform menu; then pull the handles to distort the image. When you like the way your image looks, press the Enter key to commit to the change (press Esc to abort). If you want to know more about the transformation controls.
When you use the Move tool, you can do more than just drag a layer around the document on which you’re working. You can also drag a layer from one image window to another. This copies the selected layers into the second document. The copied layers will be positioned directly above the layer that was active in the second document. This is similar to copying and pasting, but it takes up a lot less memory because Adobe Photoshop CS2 doesn’t store the image on the clipboard. You can achieve the same result by dragging the name of a layer from the Layers palette onto another document window, regardless of which tool is active.
Note: When dragging between documents, Adobe Photoshop CS2 will position the layer based on where your cursor was when you clicked the image and where you released the mouse button in the second document. Holding Shift when dragging between documents will cause the layers to end up in the center of the destination document (if no selection is active), or centered on any active selection.
If the image you’re dragging to another document is considerably larger than the destination document, you’ll need to choose Edit>Transform>Scale to resize the image until it is an appropriate size for the destination document. If you can’t see the transformation handles, just type Command-0 (zero) to zoom out until the handles become visible.
When you drag layers between documents, occasionally an image will appear as if it has not only been copied, but also scaled at the same time. That’s not what’s really happening. Instead, you’re viewing the two images at different magnifications. Look at the tops of the documents; if the percentages do not match, the image size will appear to change when you drag the image between the documents. If you view both images with the same magnification, this won’t happen. It doesn’t change how large the image is; it simply gives you a preview of how large it will look. It’s just like putting your hand under a magnifying glass: Your hand looks larger, but when you pull your hand out, it looks normal again.
If you use the Move tool to reposition a layer, and a portion of the layer starts to extend beyond the edge of your document, Adobe Photoshop CS2 will remember the information beyond the edge . Therefore, if you move the layer away from the edge, Photoshop is able to bring back the information that was not visible. You can save a lot of memory by getting Photoshop to clip off all the information beyond the edge of the document. Here’s a little trick for trimming off that fat. Just choose Select > All and then choose Image > Crop—no more wasted memory.
It also wastes memory when you leave extra white space around the edge of your image. Because the paper you print on is white to begin with, that extra white space just makes your file size larger, and has no effect on how the image will look when it’s printed. You can choose Image > Trim to have Photoshop remove any unnecessary white space. Just adjust the Based On setting so that it will find white information in your image (depending on which corner of your image contains white), and then specify which edge of the document you’d like to trim away—I usually leave all four of the Trim Away check boxes turned on.
So far we’ve talked about how to make your images smaller to save memory and hard drive space, but now let’s do the opposite with Photoshop’s Image > Reveal All command. When you choose that command, Photoshop will enlarge your document to include any information that extends beyond the bounds of your document. That means that all the layers that you’ve moved beyond the edge of your document will become visible once again.
Note: Use the “trim the fat” technique only if you’re absolutely sure you won’t need the information beyond the edge of the document, because you cannot get it back once you’ve cropped it (that is, without resorting to the History palette).
The default setting in the Crop tool is to delete the areas that extend beyond the edge of your image. You can prevent it from deleting those areas by clicking the Hide setting in the Crop tool options bar (it will be available only in files that contain layers). That will cause Adobe Photoshop CS2 to reduce the size of the image based on the cropping rectangle you specify, but it will retain the information that extends beyond the edge of the image.
When multiple layers are linked together, using the Move tool or choosing Edit > Transform will cause the currently active layer and all the layers that are linked to it to change (as if all the linked layers were selected). The advantage to linking layers is that the linking behavior will be maintained regardless of which layer is active. So, if two layers should always relate in size and position, link them together so that rerlationship will remain consistent. To link multiple layers, select the layers and then click on the Link symbol that’s found at the bottom of the Layers palette. After linking the layers, moving or transforming the image while any one of the linked layers are selected will cause all the linked layers to change. To unlink layers, select the layers you want to unlink and click the link symbol again.
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