2 The Basics Of Layers - The Background Layer by Toni Westenberg

Photoshop Basics: The Basics Of Layers - The Background Layer

By Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com

THE BASICS OF LAYERS - THE BACKGROUND LAYER Now that we’ve taken a look at what layers are and why they’re so useful when working in Photoshop, there’s one type of layer we need to look at separately from the “normal” layers, and that’s the Background layer. The Background layer is a special type of layer. When I say “special”, I don’t mean it’s better somehow than normal layers. In fact, quite the opposite really. What makes it special is that it has strict limitations put on it which the normal layers don’t have, as we’ll see in a moment. To see the Background layer, we need a new document, so let’s quickly open one up inside Photoshop. Notice I said “quickly”. Previously, to open a new document, we went up to the Menu Bar at the top of the screen, clicked on the word File to bring up a list of options under the File menu, and the first option was New which, when clicked, brought up the New Document dialog box. That’s certainly one way of doing it, but that seems like too much mouse moving and clicking for something as simple as creating a new document. A much faster way is to simply use the keyboard shortcut, which is Ctrl+N (on a Windows system) or Command+N (on a Mac). As quickly as you can press two keys down on the keyboard, the New Document dialog box appears:

Again, I’ll use 640x480 as my pixel dimensions, although it makes no difference here what the dimensions are. The important thing is that we create a new document. What does matter here though is the Background Contents option near the bottom of the dialog box:

By default, the Background Contents are set to White, which means that when you create a new blank document, the background will be white. This is normally what you want, as it gives you a nice white background to work with in your new blank document, but there’s a couple of additional options as well which can be accessed by clicking on the downpointing arrow, as shown in the screenshot above. The reason this is important is because one of these additional options will prevent Photoshop from creating the special Background layer. One of the two additional options, and the one directly below “White”, is Background Color. This option is very similar to choosing “White” in that it will fill the background of our new blank document with a solid color. The only difference is that instead of using white, “Background Color” will fill the document with whichever color we currently have selected as our background color in the Tools palette. Regardless of whether you choose “White” or “Background Color” as the background contents in the dialog box, Photoshop will create a new blank document for you which contains one single layer, the “Background” layer, which we can see by looking at our Layers Palette as soon as the new document is created:

Photoshop Basics: The Basics Of Layers - The Background Layer

By Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com

The Third Option = The One Exception

The third option though for Background Contents, Transparent, is the one exception that will not give us this special Background layer. When you select “Transparent” for your document’s background, Photoshop gives you exactly what you’ve asked for - a new blank document filled with absolutely nothing. As we saw previously in the earlier sections, Photoshop represents transparency with a checkerboard pattern, and that’s what you’ll see as your new document’s background, as shown below:

And here’s what the Layers palette looks like with a new document using a transparent background:

Notice the difference? Here’s the Layers palette once again from a “normal” new document using the default white background:

The difference is that when creating a new document with a transparent background, we’re still presented with a single layer in our document, but rather than being called “Background” and written in italics, it’s simply called “Layer 1”, indicating that it’s a normal layer, nothing special about it at all. So, just to summarize this little section, whenever you create a new document or open a digital photo in Photoshop, Photoshop creates a new document for us with one layer in the Layers palette, a special layer named “Background”. The only exception to this is if we choose “Transparent” as our background for the new document, in which case the single layer we’re presented with in our new document will be a normal, transparent layer named “Layer 1”. This Photoshop Tutorial © 2008 Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com. Not To Be Reproduced Or Redistributed Without Permission.

Photoshop Basics: The Basics Of Layers - The Background Layer

By Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com

The Background Layer And Why It’s Special

Now that we’ve looked at the one and only way that will prevent Photoshop from giving us our special Background layer, we can look at why this layer is considered “special” in the first place. The reason for it, as I briefly mentioned already, is that the Background layer has limitations placed on it which normal layers don’t have. See, the folks at Adobe all woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and were so grumpy, they decided to take their anger and frustration out on the lowly Background layer, placing unfair limitations on it for no good reason. Okay, so that’s not exactly true. Actually, there’s very good reasons for the limitations placed on Background layers, but let’s take a look at this limitations first. For one thing, Background layers cannot be transparent and cannot contain transparent areas. They serve as the background for our document, and as such, they would make pretty lousy backgrounds if you couldn’t, you know, see them. Secondly, Background layers cannot be deleted, and you can’t delete any part of them. Go ahead and try it. Drag out a selection on a background layer and press the Delete key on your keyboard. You’d probably expect to see a checkerboard pattern where the area you just deleted used to be, knocking out a big hole in the Background layer and leaving a transparent area, but that just means you’ve already forgotten the first rule about Background layers, which is that they can’t contain transparency. Also notice that when you have the Background layer selected in the Layers palette, the trash can icon at the bottom of the Layers palette is grayed out, another indication that you can’t delete it. So what happens if you try to delete a selection on the Background layer? Well, you don’t actually delete anything. Instead, the area becomes filled with whichever color you currently have selected as your background color in the Tools palette. To show you what I mean, here’s a photo I have opened inside Photoshop. My document contains only one layer, the Background layer. Notice that I’ve dragged a rectangular selection around the center of the photo:

In the Tools palette, I’ve changed my background color to red, as shown here:

After pressing the Delete key on my keyboard to delete the selection, rather than leaving me with a transparent “hole” in the middle of the image, Photoshop instead fills the selected area with my chosen background color:

Photoshop Basics: The Basics Of Layers - The Background Layer

By Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com

So Background layers can’t be deleted and they can’t be transparent. What other limitations are there for Background layers? Well, if you read through the previous section, “The Basics Of Layers In Photoshop”, you’ll recall that at the end of the section, we tried moving the Background layer with the Move Tool from the Tools palette, and what happened? We got this instead:

Photoshop threw us an error message telling us that it can’t move the layer because it’s locked. If you look at the Background layer again from that section, you’ll see an icon that looks like a lock to the right of the word “Background”:

There’s no way to unlock a Background layer, and locked layers cannot be moved, which means the third rule of Background Layers is that they can’t be moved. No transparency, can’t delete them, and can’t move them. Anything else? Why yes, there’s one more rule: Background layers must always remain at the bottom of the layer stack in the Layers Palette. Unlike normal layers which you can drag up and down in the layer stack, Background layers, since they’re backgrounds after all, must remain at the very bottom of the layer stack. You can’t drag them above any layers, and you can’t drag any layers below them. So no transparency, can’t delete them, can’t move them, and they must always remain at the bottom of the layer stack in the Layers Palette.

The Reasons For The Limitations

I joked a moment ago about the folks at Adobe placing unfair restrictions on Background layers simply because they were in a bad mood one day, but if you think about it, there’s some good reasons for why these limitations exist. When you open a digital photo in Photoshop to work on it, your photo is placed on the Background layer in the new document that Photoshop opens. Now, that Background layer is holding your original photo, your “baby”, if you will. It has all the responsibility of looking after and protecting that original photo while you’re working on it. Would you really want the ability to accidentally delete a section of that original photo and leave a big transparent hole in its place? Probably not. Would you want to be able to accidentally move the original photo out of place so that all the work you’ve done on it that’s sitting on layers above the Background layer is suddenly out of alignment with your photo? Again, probably not. Is there any real need to drag a layer below the Background layer when you’d never be able to see it since Background layers can’t be deleted or contain transparency? I can’t think of any reason why that would be beneficial. So there really are some valid reasons for why Background layers are treated as “special”.

Converting A Background Layer To A Normal Layer

If, for some reason, you decide that your work in Photoshop would be better served without the limitations of a Background layer, you can easily convert the Background layer to a normal layer simply by holding down the Alt key (on Windows) or the Option key (on a Mac) and double-clicking on the name “Background”. Photoshop will automatically change the This Photoshop Tutorial © 2008 Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com. Not To Be Reproduced Or Redistributed Without Permission.

Photoshop Basics: The Basics Of Layers - The Background Layer

By Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com

name to “Layer 0”, and all limitations that were once placed on the layer as a Background layer will be instantly removed, leaving you with a normal layer.

Converting A Normal Layer To A Background Layer

What if you’ve converted your Background layer to a normal layer and then decide you want it to be a Background layer again. Is there any way to convert it back? There sure is. With the bottom-most layer in the layer stack selected (this only works on the bottom layer in the layer stack, since Background layers must be at the bottom) just go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, select New from the list of options under the Layer menu, and then select Background from Layer. Photoshop will convert the layer to a Background layer and rename it “Background”, written in italics indicating that once again, it’s “special”. And there we have it! For more Adobe Photoshop tutorials, visit Photoshop Essentials.com @ www.photoshopessentials.com!