so that it is now hiding the text layer because of the layer order. The layers are still linked and will move together.

Here’s another finished tutorial design from psd.net. I’ve had to clean up the layer order of this because it was a little messy and put some layers in sets such as ‘unused’. Do this if you don’t want to throw layers in the trash. Note that the big ‘II’ layer is beneath the separate text layers above it yet above the gold custom gradient background.

Remember you can turn layers on and off which often help determine ‘visually’ where they are located in the document. Now try changing the layer order. You can actually use this .psd file because all of the psd.net tutorials are available for download when you sign up for the free PSDer ezine.
 

Move the ‘II’ layer above a text layer or two.

It’s important to let these basic fundamentals sink in. Layer order is extremely important and you must have an natural instinct or understanding of it to become a pro Photoshop user or graphic designer.

If you have separate text layers, try placing it between them in the layers palette.

The menu commands are under Layer: Arrange...Bring forward, etc. But I recommend you keep using the layers palette.

Create a new layer set by clicking on the folder icon as shown.

You can then drag these text files into this folder for more organization. Use layer sets to keep similar layers together.

You can see that the layers are located in the ‘opened’ folder because they appear white instead of grey.

In Photoshop CS you can now put layer sets within layer sets within layer sets.  Here I’ve put all of the layers and sets into this one master layer set.

How clean is that? Too bad my deskspace isn’t that clean (or maybe it’s just hiding the mess underneath).  Here I’m moving the entire layer set at once with the moVe tool.

You can open the master layer set and then go in and work on other layer sets or highlight individual layers to work on them (move, adjust, transform, filter, etc.)

To understand everything, get my complete Photoshop video training right here, but only if you want to learn everything you can about harnessing the power of Photoshop.

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