CHAPTER 16 THE IMPORTANCE OF LAYERS AND MASKS 241■ Layer, Merge Visiblemerges all the visible layers (those with their eye
icons visible in the Layers palette). The active layer must be visible or this
command will not work.
■ Layer, Flatten Imagemerges all the layers into one layer.If you work with TIFF or PSD files, you might see the error message “Layers will
increase file size” when saving, even though you only have one layer in your image.
Usually this means you haven’t flattened the image. Cancel out of the save, and
then choose Layer, Flatten Image.
Layers are saved only when the file is saved in Photoshop (PSD) format or TIFF for-
mat. Layers are not saved in JPEG or GIF formats. Save an archival copy of your
image in Photoshop format if you believe you might work on it again in the future.Creating an Extended Family
Follow these steps to add people to an image using layers:- Find several digitized images of your family or friends. Your artistic goal is to
combine people from the separate images so they seem to belong together, or
to make the image obviously artificial but acceptably plausible. - Use the selection tools (Lasso, Rectangle Marquee, and Pen) to copy images of
people (with or without their surroundings) from two or more sources and
paste them into a third image. Consider whether you want realism or an arti-
ficial look. Realism requires much more work. You’ll be combining images
from several sources, so you’ll need to plan ahead to ensure that the people’s
images are the right size relative to each other. - Choose one image as the “master.” Choose Image, Image Size in Photoshop
or Image, Resize, Image Size in Elements. Note the Resolution in the Image
Size dialog box. All the other images should have a similar resolution. - Check the resolution in the other images to be copied and ensure they have
the same resolution. If they do not, you can change their resolution in the
Image Size dialog box. - Copy and paste each image into the master by selecting the image (or a por-
tion of it) using Select, All and then Edit, Copy and Edit, Paste. Each pasted
image will appear on a new layer. Use the Lasso tool or the Pen tool if you
want to select only a portion of an image. - Apply color and tonal corrections to each layer to make it match the master
image. Layers enable you to make tonal corrections without affecting the
other images (layers). You can also move the layer’s image until you have a
satisfactory composition.