Page 36 - Enhancing CAD Drawings with Photoshop

4386.book Page 19 Monday, November 15, 2004 3:27 PM

USING LAYERS 19

Figure 1.18
This bar highlights as you drag.
Dragging layers to
reorder them

A bar appears between layers as you drag Layer 0 in the stack. Release the mouse when the bar
appears between Layer 1 and Layer 2. Observe that the yellow circle disappeared from the doc-
ument window.

The yellow circle on Layer 1 is now obscured by the white pixels on Layer 0, which is now
higher in the stack. You can use layers to obscure each other like this.
5. Click Layer 0 in the stack to select it. Press W to choose the Magic Wand tool and uncheck Use
All Layers on the Options bar. Now the magic wand affects only the current layer. Click any-
where on the white pixels to make a selection.
6. Press the Delete key to erase the white pixels, and then press Ctrl+D to deselect.
The yellow circle is now visible (see Figure 1.19) because it is no longer obscured by white pix-
els that were originally part of the Background layer. Notice that the background in the doc-
ument window looks like a pattern of gray and white squares. This checkerboard pattern is
used in Photoshop to indicate transparency.
7. Drag Layer 0 onto the Create New Layer button along the bottom edge of the Layers palette to
duplicate this layer. A new layer called Layer 0 Copy appears above Layer 0 in the stack (see
Figure 1.20).

NOTE If you click the New button, a new blank layer appears above the selected layer in the stack.

Figure 1.19
The layers image with a
transparent background