Exercise 7: Moving & Selecting Layer Contents

One of the most useful things to be able to do is moving things around on layers.

If you still have the last file you created open, go to it, and select any layer in the Layers palette. Hold down "COMMAND" on Mac or "CTRL" on PC and proceed to click anywhere in your document and drag the contents of that layer around. If you hold SHIFT and drag, the movement will be confined to straight horizontal, vertical and 45 degree angles. Try it out, it can be very useful to apply at times.

You can also move the contents of a layer using the Arrow Keys. Hold down "COMMAND" on Mac or "CTRL" on PC and tap or hold the arrow keys. The layer contents should move. If you hold SHIFT down while tapping an arrow, each movement will cover more area. Make sure you've got a layer selected that has something on it, and that your layer is not locked

There's also a "Move Tool" (V), which I rarely use due to the convenience of using a keyboard modifier as I just described to any tool. The move tool is also a Transform Tool, but I use the keyboard to access Transform options as well. I'll talk about Resampling images soon.

If for any reason you don't get the desired result you're looking for with layers; moving, filling, deleting, drawing on, changing options for, these are the most common reasons I come across: The layer is locked. I've got the wrong layer selected. There's nothing on the layer I have selected. There's a selection that's hidden and I'm trying to do something outside of it (which won't work). Sometimes I accidentally switch the editing mode to "Quick Mask" above the Color Selector in the Tools palette accidentally, and nothing works. Sometimes if I can't figure it out, I restart Photoshop or my entire computer. This has fixed weird control-loss problems a few times.

Another way to move layer contents around is vertically. You can click and drag layers in the Layer Palette moving them above and below other layers, so their contents appear in front of or behind the contents of other layers.

There is also a very handy way to select different layers on the fly while busily working in the image editing space of your document. On Mac, hold "COMMAND" + "CONTROL" and click any part of the content which is on the layer you want to jump to (I can't find this option on PC). This will pop up a little menu like this:

As you can see, I've clicked on the "grass" Layer, and the little menu came up. The "sky" Layer is an option since it extends behind the "grass" Layer. In this menu, "grass" is on top and selected by default since it is on the upper layer. This feature is so helpful, especially when you're working with large files consisting of many unnamed layers.

There's yet another method of selecting; clicking a Layer with the "COMMAND" key pressed on Mac, "CTRL" on PC. Make sure you click inside the "frame" or box shaped area of the Layer that represents your document window.

So, try that. You don't even have to have a specific Layer selected to select a layer's contents in this way. Just choose one where the content doesn't fill the layer completely so you can see it actually work on a shape.

You can also use this to do some detective work in your own file. If I have large files and don't see anything change on a Layer when turning the layer on or off, and it's not named, I'll Control + click the Layer to see if anything gets selected. If there's nothing on the layer, there will be a "No Pixels were Selected" message.

Taking a Break