Editing a Digital Photo Using Layers in Paint Shop Pro

Sometimes, the best way to learn how to do something is to work through an example or project that uses the technique you’re trying to master. That’s what we’ll do here when explaining how to use layers in Paint Shop Pro.

In this project, we’ll start with a digital photo of a desert mountain top. Next, we’ll cover what steps are needed to add in an image of an airplane so that it appears to be flying over the area. The screenshots below show the “before” and “after” of the digital photo editing process. (Click on images for a larger view.)

First, make sure the Layers palette is visible in your workspace. If it’s not and you’re not sure how to access it, see Part 1 of this series.

Step 1: Begin by opening the photo in Paint Shop Pro. Before doing any editing there are a couple of other steps to take. These steps won’t be necessary in every editing project, but it doesn’t hurt to perform them anyway.

First, if your photo is currently a background layer, promote it to a full layer. To do this, right click on the layer in the Layers palette and select Promote Background Layer.

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After performing this operation, the single layer of the photo will now be a full raster layer that can be moved above and below other layers.

Next, go ahead and save the photo as a PSPIMAGE file if it’s not already in that format. The PSPIMAGE format will preserve all of the layers that we’ll be creating so they can be individually modified at a later date. If you want to use the finished image in another application, you’ll need to save a copy of the file as a JPEG or other compatible format, but make sure to keep the PSPIMAGE file as well.

To save the photo in this manner, choose Save As from the File menu and then pick PSPIMAGE from the dropdown box next to Save as type.

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Step 2: Now, we want to add a new raster layer. Right-click anywhere in the Layers palette, and select New Raster Layer.

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In the New Raster Layer dialog box, just keep the default settings. You can choose to give the new layer a name if you like, but I usually add and delete layers so often that I don’t bother with naming them until I’m sure that I’m going to keep them. Besides, Raster 2 isn’t that bad of a description, right?

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Step 3: Click on the Picture Tube Tool. From the Picture Tubes toolbar, select the Airplanes tube. For more information on working with picture tubes, see the article Paint Shop Pro Picture Tubes – The Basics.

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Adjust the scale and other picture tube options as needed.

Step 4: After making sure that the empty raster layer is selected, click on the image to add an airplane from the picture tube. If you don’t like the one that appears or if you want to adjust the size, click Undo and try again. Don’t worry so much about the position of the picture tube image at this time – we’re going to show how to change that in a moment.

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Notice in the Layers palette that the airplane is only visible in the new layer created and not in the layer containing the original photo.

Next: Continue to Page 2 of this article to see how to use other types of layers in this editing project.