Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
keep layers in your files forever. You can reduce a file's size quite a bit—and sometimes also
make things easier to manage—by merging layers and flattening images.
Merging Layers
You may sometimes have two or more separate layers that really could be treated as one lay-
er, like the plants in
Figure 6-1
. Fortunately, you aren't limited to just linking those layers to-
gether; once you've got everything arranged just right, you can
merge
them together into a
single layer, as shown in
Figure 6-17
.
Also, if you want to copy and paste your image, stand-
ard Copy and Paste commands typically copy only the top active layer (if you have more
than one layer active), so it helps to get everything into one layer—at least temporarily—by
merging layers. You'll probably merge layers quite often when you're working with mul-
tilayer files; for example, when you've got multiple objects that you want to edit simultan-
eously.
You have a couple of different ways to merge layers, depending on what's active in your im-
age. You can run either of the following commands by heading up to the Layer menu, click-
ing the Layers panel's upper-right button (the four-line square), or by using keyboard short-
cuts:
▪
Merge Down
(Ctrl+E/
⌘
-E) combines the active layer with the layer immediately be-
neath it. (If the layer just below the active layer is hidden, then you can't run this com-
mand.)
▪
Merge Visible
(Shift+Ctrl+E/Shift-
⌘
-E) combines all the visible layers in the current
document into one layer. If you want to combine layers that are far apart, then just tem-
porarily hide the ones in between (and any other layers that you don't want to merge) by
clicking their eye icons.
It's important to understand that once you merge layers and then save and close your file,
you can't just unmerge them. While your file is still open, you can use any of the Undo com-
layers.
