Layers Tutorial for Photoshop

1. Download these files: cd.psd, horn.psd, background.psd. Do not change the image extension, keep the extension .psd, otherwise you won't be able to perform this tutorial.

2. Open them all in Adobe Photoshop.

3. Click the title of the cd file and click the Eliptical Marquee Tool. Now, click on the top left corner of the cd file and drag diagonaly to the bottom right corner of the image. When the cd is selected, release. Click the Move Tool and drag the selected cd to the background image. Position it where you want it to be. Press enter.

4. Choose Edit, Free Transform, and drag by its corner the cd until it is as small as you wanted it. If you move the mouse outside of its margins, in the background, click and drag to the upper right or upper left, the cd will rotate accordingly. If you want to move it again, click the move tool and move it. When you are done with the cd transformations, press enter.

5.Click the title of the horn.psd image, and click the Magic Wand Tool. Click on the white background, go to Select, choose Similar, go to Select again, choose Invert. Now click the move tool and drag the horn to the background image. Use the Free Transform option described above to make the changes you want to the horn on the background image. On the layers' pallete, change it's opacity to 40%.

6. At any time if you want to make changes to a different layer that you are currently working on, on the layer's pallete click on the layer you want to make changes too.

7. Use the T (text) tool to type your name and section (A1, B1, B2, or C1) on the image. You should have four layers by now (the background, the cd, the horn, and the text).

8. Go to Layer, and choose Flatten Image. Once you have done this, you can not make changes to the previous layers, it's all one image.

9. You may want to save it as a gif or jpeg so you can put it on the web.

created by Monica Stoica, smonica@cs.bu.edu, Boston University - CS Department

books used: Photoshop Classroom in a CD