Where is layer palette in photoshop

Right now, Layer 2 is sitting above Layer 1, but I can move Layer 2 below Layer 1 by clicking on Layer 2 and, with my mouse button still held down, dragging the layer downward until a highlight bar appears between Layer 1 and the Background layer. This is the spot where the layer will be placed:. Release your mouse button when the highlight bar appears.

Photoshop drops the layer into its new position:. The only layer we can't move in the Layers panel is the Background layer. We also can't move other layers below the Background layer.

All other layers can be dragged above or below other layers as needed. Again, we'll cover the Background layer in much more detail in the next tutorial. You may have noticed that when I only had the one Background layer in my document, it was highlighted in blue in the Layers panel. Then, when I added Layer 1, Layer 1 became the highlighted layer. And now Layer 2 is the highlighted layer. When a layer is highlighted, it means it's currently the active layer.

Anything we do in the document is done to the contents of the active layer. Each time we add a new layer, Photoshop automatically makes it the active layer, but we can manually change which layer is the active layer simply by clicking on the layer we need. Here, I'll make Layer 1 the active layer by clicking on it, and we see that it becomes highlighted:.

To delete a layer, simply click on it and, with your mouse button still held down, drag it down onto the Trash Bin icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Release your mouse button when you're over the icon. Here, I'm deleting Layer We've seen how to add a new blank layer to a document, but we can also make a copy of an existing layer using the Layers panel.

To copy a layer, click on it and, with your mouse button held down, drag it down onto the New Layer icon. I'll make a copy of my Background layer:. Release your mouse button when you're over the New Layer icon. A copy of the layer will appear above the original. In my case, Photoshop made a copy of my Background layer and named it "Background copy".

Notice that it also made this new layer the active layer it's highlighted in blue :. I'm going to quickly apply a couple of Photoshop's blur filters to my Background copy layer just so we have something different on each layer.

Since Photoshop's filters are beyond the scope of this tutorial, I'll go through these steps fairly quickly. First, I'll apply the Motion Blur filter by going up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choosing Blur , and then choosing Motion Blur :. This opens the Motion Blur dialog box. Then, because I'm working on a large, high resolution image, I'll increase the Distance value to around pixels. If you're using a smaller image, you may want to use a smaller value:.

To soften the effect a bit more, I'll apply Photoshop's Gaussian Blur filter by going back up to the Filter menu, back to Blur , and this time choosing Gaussian Blur :.

I'll set the Radius value at the bottom of the Gaussian Blur dialog box to around 20 pixels just to soften any harsh diagonal lines. Again, if you're using a smaller image, a smaller value may work best:. It may look like I've blurred the entire image, but if we look in the Layers panel, we see that's not the case.

Since the Background copy layer was the active layer when I applied the blur filters, only the Background copy layer was affected. We can see the blurred image in the Background copy layer's preview thumbnail. The original image on the layer below it was not affected. Its preview thumbnail is still showing the original, untouched image:. If I want to see the original photo again in the document, I can simply turn the blurred layer off by clicking its layer visibility icon to the left of the preview thumbnail.

When the little eyeball is visible, it means the layer is visible in the document. Clicking the icon will hide the eyeball and hide the layer:. With the blurred layer hidden, the original photo reappears in the document.

The blurred layer is still there; we just can't see it at the moment:. To turn the blurred layer back on, I just need to click on the empty box where the eyeball used to be:. This turns the blurred layer back on the document, once again hiding the original photo from view:. As we've seen, Photoshop automatically names layers for us as we add them, but the names it gives them, like "Layer 1" and "Background copy", are pretty generic and not very helpful.

When we only have a couple of layers in a document, the names may not seem very important, but when we find ourselves working with 10, 20 or even or more layers, it's much easier to keep them organized if they have meaningful names.

Thankfully, Photoshop makes it easy to rename a layer. Simply double-click directly on a layer's name in the Layers panel to highlight it:. Then, type in a new name. I'll change the name of my Background copy layer to "Blur". Layer masks are essential for much of our Photoshop work. We won't get into the details of them here, but to add a layer mask on a layer, first make sure the layer you want to add it to is selected.

Then click the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel the rectangle with the circle in the middle :. A layer mask thumbnail will appear to the right of the layer's preview thumbnail, letting you know that the mask has been added.

Notice that the thumbnail is filled with white. On a layer mask, white represents the areas of the layer that remain visible in the document, while black represents areas that will be hidden.

By default, Photoshop fills new layer masks entirely with white. Notice also that the layer mask thumbnail shows a white border around it. This tells us that the mask, not the actual layer itself, is currently selected and active:. With the layer mask added, we can paint on it with a brush to reveal part of the original image below the Blur layer. To hide parts of the Blur layer, I'll need to paint on the layer mask with black.

Photoshop uses the current Foreground color as the brush color, so before I start painting, I'll make sure my Foreground color is set to black. We can see the current Foreground and Background colors in the color swatches near the bottom of the Tools panel.

By default, whenever we have a layer mask selected, Photoshop sets the Foreground color to white and the Background color to black. To swap them and set the Foreground color to black, all we need to do is press the letter X on the keyboard:.

With my Foreground color set to black, I'll paint on the layer mask to hide those parts of the Blur layer and reveal the original image on the Background layer below it. You can adjust the size of your brush from the keyboard. Press the left bracket key [ repeatedly to make the brush smaller or the right bracket key ] to make it larger. To make the brush edges softer , press and hold your Shift key and press the left bracket key [ repeatedly.

To make the edges harder , hold Shift and press the right bracket key ] :. If we look again at the layer mask thumbnail, we see that it's no longer filled with solid white.

Some areas are still filled with white, but we can also see the areas where we've painted with black. Again, white on a mask represents the areas of the layer that remain visible in the document, while black areas are hidden from view:.

If everything we just did there was brand new to you, don't worry. Layer masks are a whole other topic, and I explain them in much more detail in our Understanding Layer Masks in Photoshop tutorial. Look at the screenshot of the Color Palette below and take note of the two stacked boxes, shown as black and white.

In the screenshot, note that the foreground color is the top box black and the background color is the bottom box white. To change the color, select either the foreground and background color box in the Color Palette by clicking on it.

Then, use either the sliders or click in the spectrum below the sliders to select a new color. If you do not like using the sliders, double click on a color box to bring up the Color Picker [shown right].

Selecting a Color from the Color Picker. Also know that you can select and change Foreground and Background colors within your Tools Palette by using this mini color palette located near the bottom of the Tools Palette. The History Palette — Saving a Snapshot.

The History Palette is a log of all the actions you perform within Photoshop. By default, the History Palette contains the last 20 changes to your image. Each time you change the image, a new state is added to the History Palette. To jump to a particular state, click on that state name in the History Palette and all other actions after that state wil become greyed out and italicized.

The Snapshot command lets you take a snapshot of any state in the History Palette of your image. The new snapshot is added to a list of snapshots located at the top of History Palette. To create a snapshot:. Select the state that you want to capture. Click the New Snapshot icon at the bottom of History Palette. Still have questions? Check out the links below for additional information!

Adobe Help - Tools. University of Michigan Library Research Guides. Ask a Librarian. Information on Photoshop basics including: how to open and create a new image, navigating pallets, learning the parts of a layer, how to use guides, and where to go for more help at the University of Michigan.

Palettes Introduction to Palettes Palettes [shown right] are groups of tools used to edit and manipulate your image. Can't find your palette? Choose a command from the Photoshop Layers panel menu. Click the triangle in the upper-right corner of the panel. Change the size of Photoshop layer thumbnails. Choose Panel Options from the Layers panel menu, and select a thumbnail size.

Change thumbnail contents. Turn off thumbnails to improve performance and save monitor space. Expand and collapse groups. Filter Photoshop layers. Choose a filter type from the pop-up menu.

Select or enter the filter criteria. Click the toggle switch to switch layer filtering on or off. Convert background and Photoshop layers. Convert a background into a Photoshop layer. Click OK. Convert a Photoshop layer into a background. Select a Photoshop layer in the Layers panel.

Video tutorial: Turn the background layer into a regular layer. Scott Kelby. Duplicate Photoshop layers. You can duplicate layers within an image or into another or a new image. Duplicate a Photoshop layer or group within an image. Select a layer or group in the Layers panel. Do one of the following:. Duplicate a Photoshop layer or group in another image.

Open the source and destination images. From the Layers panel of the source image, select one or more layers or a layer group. Drag the layer or group from the Layers panel to the destination image. Create a new document from a Photoshop layer or group. Select a layer or group from the Layers panel. Sample from all visible Photoshop layers.

To smudge or sample pixels from all visible layers with these tools, select Sample All Layers from the options bar. Change transparency preferences. Choose a size and color for the transparency checkerboard, or choose None for Grid Size to hide the transparency checkerboard. More like this Create and manage layers and groups Select, group, and link layers Work with Smart Objects.