You can see in the panel in Figure 5-6 that the document already
has five layers: the martini glass image, a layer full of color blobs,
a fill layer with a vector mask, and the two aforementioned text
layers (sporting the icon if you encountered that warning).
For now, the Glass 1 layer is the only one visible, as indicated
by the fact that you can see a to the left of it. We’ll be turn-
ing on the visibility of the other layers as well as adding even
more layers during this exercise and the next.The thumbnails in the Layers panel are useful for understanding the contents
of each layer at a glance. To maximize their utility, make them as large as
possible by clicking the in the upper-right corner of the panel to open
the Layers panel menu. Then choose Panel Options and select the largest
thumbnail size. Click OK.- Change the transparency indicator pattern. The checkerboard
pattern you see on the right side of the image is the transpar-
ency grid, which is Photoshop’s way of indicating that no pixel
information is in that area. I find the default color scheme of
the checkerboard a bit unhelpful because it uses white squares.
White is a fairly common feature of images, so sometimes the
white in the checkerboard can be misleading. You can change
this color pattern in the Preferences dialog box, as follows:
Figure 5-6.Figure 5-7.- Press Ctrl+K (�-K) to open the Prefer-
ences dialog box. - Choose Transparency & Gamut in the
left pane, as in Figure 5-7. - Leave the Grid Colors set to Light.
- Click the white swatch below Grid Op-
tions. - In the color picker, change the B (Bright-
ness) value to 70 percent, as indicated in
Figure 5-7. - Click OK two times (or just press Enter
or Return) to dismiss both dialog boxes.
The transparency grid now appears in a
lower contrast version that you can see in
Figure 5-8 on the facing page.
- Add a Background layer. You don’t need a Background layer
in an image, but adding one can be helpful for visually under-
standing a composition.
134 Lesson 5: Working with Layers