Adobe Photoshop 7 Tutorials
Layers / Collapsing Layers
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Photoshop 7 / Layers / Collapsing Layers)
Sometimes, you simply might need to collapse layers together in order to preserve memory, or if you might be getting overwhelmed by your multiple layers. And this can happen quickly, since it's so easy to add new layers and copy layers. See here, I have this collection of three flowers, I've actually created a little drop shadow for the flower as well as this cool glow. And what I might do of course is put them in their own set, and manage them that way. But another option I have is to link these flowers, and let's say I'm just going to commit to the fact that I'll always like this collection the way it is - and I can collapse these onto one layer. So with my layer selected, and its associated linked layers linked to it, go to the layer palette menu and choose merge linked. And it will collapse all those layers into one layer. We could also choose any folder set, and do the same thing. So with that folder set selected, I can now choose merge layer set. And another option I have is to disable some of these layers, by turning their eyeball off so now I've turned the eyeball icon off for my background layer, and the gradient fill. Another option I have is to merge the visible layers. So this will collapse all the layers that the eyeball icon is currently on into one layer. Now all these items are on their own layer. And finally we can choose to flatten the image. And what that will do is collapse all the layers onto the background image. So now they're all stuck on the ground floor. Well, I'm going to undo that for a moment and talk about the concept of the background image. You know of course that we can reorder layers. I'm going to undo a couple more of these, and since these layer supports transparency, I can click and drag them into a different order. So, I could drag my flower underneath my gradient layer. But what I cannot do is drag anything underneath the background layer, because this layer since it says background and has the lock icon next to it - it's essentially stuck on the bottom floor. So I can't drag my flower below it, and notice when I try I get the don't or not symbol, indicating that it just simply is not possible. If I wanted to do that, because sometimes I store extra copies below the background, I need to rename this and make it support transparency. So the way you do that is give it any other name besides background. So just double click on it and you can give it a new name. Or I'll just stick with this one layer 0 and now notice that background and italics is no longer there, and it has them renamed. So now I can reorder this layer as well, and drag an item underneath it to hide it essentially. So that's the meaning of background in italics. Background in italics means that it's the bottom floor of your layers palette, and cannot be edited in the sense that you cannot drag anything underneath it, or punch a hole through it since it does not support transparency. If you want it to support transparency, so that it can be reordered, or you can somehow make a transparent effect to it, you need to rename it by double clicking on it and giving it a new name.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Photoshop 7 |
| Author: | Andrew J. Hathaway |
| SKU: | 33329 |
| ISBN: | 1889347272 |
| Release Date: | 2002-09-05 |
| Duration: | 11 hrs / 152 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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