Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [215]
If you click on the ‘Create a new group’ button in the Layers panel, this adds a new layer group above the current target layer, while -clicking on the same button adds a layer group below the target layer and -clicking opens the New Group from Layers dialog (see Figure 9.33).
Figure 9.33 When a Photoshop document ends up with this many layers, the layer stack can become difficult to manage, but it is possible to organize layers within layer groups. In this example, I used a -click to select the three spotting layers near the bottom of the layer stack. I then went to the Layers panel fl y-out menu and chose ‘New Group from Layers…’ I entered a name for the new group and selected a violet color to color code the layers within this group. Once I had done this, the visibility of all layers within this group could be switched on or off via the layer group eyeball icon and the opacity of the group could be adjusted as if all the layers in the group were a single merged layer.Client: Andrew Collinge Hair & Beauty. Hair by Andrew Collinge artistic team, Make-up: Liz Collinge.
The Layer group visibility can be toggled by clicking on the layer group eye icon. It is also possible to adjust the opacity and blending mode of a layer group as if it were a single layer, while the subset of layers within the layer group itself can all have individually set opacities and use different blending modes. You can also add a layer mask or vector mask to a layer group and use this to mask the layer group visibility, as you would with individual layers. To reposition a layer in a Layer group, click on the layer and drag it up or down within the layer stack. To move a layer into a layer group, drag it to the layer group icon or drag to an expanded layer group. To remove a layer from a layer group, just drag the layer above or below the group in the stack (see page 502).
Nested group layer compatibility
You can now have a layer group (or groups) nested within a layer group up to 10 nested layer groups deep. As a consequence of this, if a CS5 image with more than five nested layer groups is opened in an earlier version of Photoshop, a warning dialog will be shown. In the case of Photoshop CS3 or CS4, you'll see a ‘this document contains unknown data…’ warning where you can choose one of the options mentioned in the sidebar to open the image.
Incompatible layer group warnings
‘Flatten’ preserves the appearance of the document by reading the fl attened composite data (provided ‘Maximum Compatibility’ was switched on). The ‘Keep Layers’ option attempts to preserve all the layers but this may produce different-looking results.
Managing layers in a group
The following steps help illustrate the workings of the layer group management discussed on the preceding pages.
1.
Layers can be moved into a layer group by mousing down on a layer and dragging the layer into the desired layer group.
2.
The same method can be used when you want to move a layer group to within another layer group. Mouse down and drag the group to another layer group.
3.
You can move multiple layers at once. Make a select, or layer selection of the layers you want to move and then drag them to the layer group.
4.
To remove a layer or layer group from a group, just drag it out of the layer group until you see a bold line appear on the divider above or below the layer group.
5.
Here is a view of the Layers panel with the Face retouching group now outside and above the Master retouching layer group.
Group layer shortcut
Selected layers can be grouped together by choosing Layer Group Layers, or by using the shortcut. You can also lock all layers inside a layer group via the Layers panel submenu.
Clipping masks
Clipping masks can be used to