Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
TIP
Full Photoshop also has another kind of mask, called the Quick Mask. If you try a tutorial
written for Photoshop that calls for Quick Mask, just use Elements' Selection Brush in
Mask mode instead.
Adjustment and Fill Layers
Adjustment layers
and
Fill layers
are special types of layers. Adjustment layers let you ma-
nipulate the lighting, color, or exposure of the layers beneath them. If you're mainly interes-
ted in using Elements to spruce up photos, then you'll probably use Adjustment layers more
than any other kind of layer. They're great because they let you undo or change your edits
later on.
You can also use Adjustment layers to take the changes you've made to one photo and apply
those same changes to another photo (see the box on
Adjustment Layers for Batch Process-
ing
). And after you've created an Adjustment layer, you can limit future edits so they change
only the area of the photo affected by the Adjustment layer. You'll find out about all the
things you can do with Adjustment layers in the next few chapters. This section simply ex-
plains how to create and manipulate them.
Fill layers are exactly what they sound like: layers filled with a color, pattern, or
gradient
(a
rainbow-like range of colors—see
Applying Gradients
). Fill layers are great when you've cut
an object out of its original image and want to put some color behind it, for example.
One cool thing about both Adjustment and Fill layers is that they automatically come with
layer masks, as shown in
Figure 6-20
.
