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If you haven't upgraded to Photoshop 6 yet, here
is another reason to do so. In the past, the number of layers in
a Photoshop file would grow and grow to unmanageable numbers.
Now we can organize these layers in a new way. We can organize
them with layer sets.
Layer sets are one of the best new features of
PS6. At first I thought that they might just be extra weight.
Then I started using them. My attitude changed right away! At
the end of the column, I will show you a layers palette served
up old school style. you will then be able to compare the two
palettes.
First let's figure out how to set ourselves up.
To make a new layer set from scratch, click the new layer set
button at the bottom of the layers palette. Look at the red
arrow below. Once this is done, you can open up the folder, much
like a Windows explorer folder, and start cramming tons of
layers in there. When you click on the arrow to the left of the
folder, it collapses and gives you a nice neat layers pallet to
look at.
Let's look at an example. The image below shows a layers palette
with a bunch of layer sets in it. Each of these sets contains
several layers, but I don't have to scroll through all of them
to find what I need. I just go to the layer set, that I have
conveniently named what I can remember and look inside for my
layer. Pretty dang swell!
Below is the opened up folder for one of the
layer sets. Imagine all of these layers in my palette. Man what
a mess that would be! This brings me to my next point.
Modularization and ease of copying.
When you use layer sets, you can create modules
of layers. In other words, say you have a section on your image
that is a butterfly. You can make a layer set called butterfly,
that contains a wings layer, a body layer, etc... You can do
this for anything. Here I am using mine for a new page I am
working on for my site. It contains some graphics that contain
several elements. A line and a box, a thumbnail and some text
layers.
The coolest thing about this is that I can reuse
the layer sets simply by copying the whole thing. When I do
this, I get all the layers inside as well. This works great for
me here, because all I do is change the thumbnail image and the
text. So I just drag the layer set to the new layer icon (it
looks like a piece of paper), and voila, I have all the layers
there. This is the part I really love.
I told you that I would show you and old school
layers palette. It is below.
This is probably only about one third of the
layers in this image. Actually, it's not really an old school
palette either. I made this image right after PS6 came out, and
I didn't use the layer sets right away. I discovered it about
halfway through and decided to make 2 layer sets, which are not
visible in the image here. I already had tons of layers though.
I would guess there is more than 50 layers in this image. Quite
a pain to go through and name, |