Layer Tutorial for Paint Shop Pro written by Mithrin.

In this tutorial you will learn the basics about layers. Below are the 7 pictures that you can use to help understand this tutorial. From now on I will refer to them as Pic1 to Pic.7. Let's get this started. The two images we are going to use in this tutorial are Pic.1 and Pic.2. We are going to paste one of the images as a layer on top of the other and then change the opacity and mix the two images together.

First of all you want to make sure to have your Layers Palette active at the right side of your PSP window. If it's not there go to View at the topbar, then go to Palettes and select Layers from the roll-down menu (Pic.3).

Now open Pic.1 and Pic.2. Right-click on the first picture. Left-click on Copy. Select the second picture. Right-click on it and choose Paste/Paste As New Layer (Pic.4). You have now created a new layer on top of Pic.2. Now I will explain the Layer Palette to you before we go on..

Pic.1

Pic.4

Pic.3

Pic.2

Pic.5

Pic.6

Pic.7

Now if you look at the Layer window at the right you will see Raster 1 and Background (Pic.6). Raster 1 is the layer you pasted on top of Pic.2 and Background is the original Pic.2. To check this move the cursor over Raster 1 and keep it still. You will see the image that is Raster 1. Same goes for Background. This is always easy for you to keep track on what layer you are editing/working on. You can also make all other layers invisible. Do this by clicking on the eye icon (Visible Toggle) next to the layers. Click on it again to make the Layer/Background re-appear. Right next to the eye is the Opacity slider. This slider can be used to change the opacity of the various layers.

Select the Background and try to move the Opacity slider. You will notice that this is not possible. Try it now with Raster 1 and you will notice that the background starts to shine through on Pic.2. I've set it to 38 percent but you can of course set it to whatever you think looks best.

Now once you've done that all we have to do is merge down the layer onto the background. To do this go to Layers at the top bar and go to Merge on the roll-down menu, select Merge All (Flatten) (Pic.7) and you're done. Also note that you could select Merge Visible. This is easy if you are working with more layers and were mixing up just a few of them. Once you are satisfied with the result you could decide to merge the visible layers down to one layer.

These are the basics you need to know about Layers to be able to mix two pictures together. Look at the result down below. First the two original images and then the mixed one. That's all. We're done.

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