Photoshop CS2 layer management
If you look at Adobe’s website, in particular at the Photoshop CS2 section, you can read all about Photoshop’s new features, such as the new vanishing point tool, smart objects and Bridge integration. However the best new feature is the new layer management.
Photoshop’s layer palette has really improved over the past three releases. With the release of Photoshop 7 Adobe provided a way to group layers with the help of so called layer sets. The only drawback: Photoshop refused to create nested layer sets. So we had to wait until Photoshop CS in order to take full advantage of this new technique. And now with the release of Photoshop CS2, Adobe has completely redesigned the layer palette.
So what’s new?
Basically the way you select, link and group layers. For instance in older releases of Photoshop you first had to link several layers in order to move them at once. Now you just have to select multiple layers via “Cmd+Click” respectively “Shift-Click”. Great.
Linking layers
If you decide to link the selected layers you can now achieve this by clicking the “link” icon in the bottom left corner of the layer palette. Again, much simpler than it used to be.
Grouping layers
If you are like me and prefer layer sets rather than linked layers, you may be delighted to hear that also grouping is now much easier. Just select the intended layers and press “Cmd+G”. By the way Photoshop 7 and CS provided the functionality either to group layers or to create layer sets. Now only layer sets are supported.
Well as always this is just my personal point of view. So it would be interesting whether you think that the new layer palette is a step forward or backward?
