Lesson Info

Layer Comps

so enough about blending sliders. I use them all the time. The blend If sliders. And now let's look at other advanced features of working with layers. Let's say we have a client that hired me to replace the sky that's in here, because that's what the original sky looked like in the area on the right. The main thing is, the image was over. Exposed in the camera didn't capture enough detail to have color in the lower right. So I've already used the features that were taught in the session on advanced masking to remove the background on these trees. And if I turn off one of the layers that are here, let's see if I oh, I turn this layer mask off. This is what it looked like when the background had been removed. Then I have different options in here for skies. There's one. Here's a different one. Here's 3rd 1 and 1/ 1 and I want to present those to a client so they can see them. But I don't want them to see me playing in the layers panel where each time I turn one off, you see a checkerboar...

d, and then you turn another one on. And I have other fancy things going on in here. Like I'm gonna bring some of the original colors back in a tip that I showed you when we did advance masking. Anyway, I have a more complicated document that I want to show a client. I just somehow wanted present them with these options. So I'm going to use a feature called Layer Comp Sys. If I go to the layer menu or the window menu, I should say there's a trois called layer Camps and that causes this panel to come up when I get my documents set up. How I'd like to show a client I'll go to the bottom of the Layer cops window, and I'm going to click on the little plus sign. It's there to add a new layer comp in Win it, create a layer comp. I have the choice of what you to keep track of. Should it keep track of just the visibility of the layers that are my layers panel. She would also keep track of their position. So if I'm gonna be moving things around and want that on, should it keep track of layer styles, which means bevel in boss drop shadows and things like that, just in case I turned those on and off. In this particular case, it's not gonna matter, but I can turn on Ah, and then this is a more advanced feature that we won't even get Teoh in advanced layers because it has to do with smart objects and layer comes and we're just getting into lair cops. I'll leave that. Anyway, I'm gonna click. OK, so now we have our first layer competent layer Cops panel. Then I'm gonna change the appearance of my document by turning one layer off entering the next one on, and I'll create another new layer comp, and I'll just call that option, too. Then I'll switch it again and great another layer com called Option three and do it one more time. Now, if you look in the layer calms panel, you'll see the names of your layer calms. And over on the right side are those options that I had to choose from. You remember the check boxes? One was Did I want to keep track of the layers visibility and I had that turned on because the eyeball shows up here. Another is Do I wanted to keep track of the layers position? Well, that's the move tool. So that's that. Did I want to keep track of the layer styles, which would be the letter FX and then the final one. This looks kind of gray, and that's because I didn't choose the bottom check box, which had to do with Layer cops used with smart objects. So here's the name of our layer cops. We can change the name at any time, just double click on the name you can type in a different one. And then there is this little other column in that Cullen determines what layer comp we're currently looking at. So you see this one here? That's what we're looking at. So what I'm gonna do is good down that column on the left side, and I'm just going to click on the other areas, like the one next to Option three. And it's just gonna change which layers were visible, and I can go to the next one in the next one to cycle through those four different versions of this document. So now I could hide my layers panel and just have the layer comp. So pond when a client comes over and I can say, Well, what do you prefer? Option one. Option two. Option three her option for. But then the client calls and cancels our meeting and they still want to see this, but I need to email it to them. Well, if I go to the file menu, there should be a choice under export called Layer comes to files. If I choose that, then it asked me where should put it. I have mindset to my desktop where it actually looks a little deeper than my desktop. Ah, And then what should the file start with, Should it say new sky choices? Oops. I didn't mean to click up there in the top half toe fix that homeland. I accidentally clicked on the top and I got something typed in Let me hit the browse button and choose my desktop because if I have just some text typed in there, it might not go in a libel spot. Then this means Do you want to just export one, Which is the layer comp your currently looking at? We're not, and I'm gonna leave. That turned off so that I get a separate document for each file and I can tell which file format to use. I'll use J Peg. So now if I choose run, it's going to switch between all the different layer compass, and it's going to save out of JPEG file of what each one looked like. And if I were to go and look at my desktop, that's what I have right now is four brand newly created files sitting there on the desktop. But maybe the client requested they didn't want J pegs. They wanted a pdf file. Well, there's also a choice of layer comes to pdf. And so here it again asked me where would I like to save it if I want just the current layer calms or the ones that are selected or not? And otherwise, this would say about a pdf if I hit the run button. Not gonna actually run it, though. So what might we use layer comes for? Well, any time you have a complex document like I remember this one, Well, what if I wasn't sure about what pictures I was going to be using for each one of those Polaroids yet and I wanted to show somebody a bunch of different options. And so I had, like, five different choices for pictures for each one of those Polaroids. This would be a really complicated document, and just finding what layer it would take to turn on and off could be a challenge. Well, if I set it up once I save a layer comp that I can change the visibility of layers to swap out a different picture at another layer. Cop and I can easily then navigate that document using Layer com's or the more straightforward example might be a calendar. I want a layer con fridge month in as I choose the Different month. I want the text of the name of the month to change, which just change Which layer is visible cause I'd have one layer for each month, and I want to change the picture that's up there. I just have 12 pictures, and I'd be switching which ones visible, and then I would have the grid of numbers at the bottom. That would need to change, and that's what I have here. Here's January, February and so on so you can set that up in a single document. This is usually something somebody might set up Is 12 different documents, but with layer cops, we can easily save them right in the layer Cops panel. If you later on decide you want to change things like change which picture is visible for December? I could right now turn off the eyeball for whatever a picture that is and turn on the eyeball for a different one. And if I did, I would go to this layer comping might layer cops panel. And, uh, if I right click on it, I can say update layer comp, which means, you know, look at the layers that are currently visible, and I can also say only update the visibility. Don't update the position, you know, or just update position, that kind of stuff. There's a lot we can do it layer cops. It all depends on what kind of work you do as far as how useful you'll find them

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