Using Layers with Illustrations

Task

How to Do It with Layers

Make changes easier.

Create individual components on separate layers to make them easy to edit together. For example, if you have an illustration of a car speeding down a highway in the mountains, create the car, the driver, the highway, and the mountains on separate layers.

Move multiple layers together on the image canvas.

Link or group layers that need to move together. For example, link the car and the driver in this example so that when you move the car to the left, the driver moves too.

Edit graphical elements.

Create objects you need to fine-tune or edit as vector objects on vector layers.

Apply raster-only commands and effects to vector objects.

Create a new layer with raster copies of the vector objects. To do this, duplicate the vector layer and then convert it to a raster layer. Turn off the visibility of the vector layer.

Experiment with changes.

Make a copy of a layer and try out changes. Turn the visibility of a layer off and on to see which works best in the overall image.

Save work-in-progress.

Keep a copy of the intermediate steps of transformations, then turn off the visibility of those layers. If you need to go back a few steps at a later date, you will have the data.