The layer palette is one of the most important components of PSP. There is NO project which we do not use it.. so understanding it is very important. It is best to leave it open at all times. F8 on your keyboard toggles it on and off.... In this short tutorial I will attempt to help you understand it better.. Below I have named all the buttons on the palette. Most are self explanatory.  When working on a project or a tutorial you will notice it always talks about layers...This is how we build our tags.. by 'piling layers on top of layers' It helps to put every thing on its own layer that way we can move each around separately and effect them as such...

Of the 7 buttons on top of the layer palette the first one is used most... the ADD A NEW LAYER button... Each layer will have the EYE for hiding that layer with the red X or on.. the opacity.. or transparency of that layer is next...at the end of that 100 is a slider bar you can pull to left.. to effect the opacity... next is the blend mode..

Here are the options for blend mode control...each choice renders that layer with a totally different look... HANDS ON is best here to see for your self.. how each one will affect that layer.

Below here...if you will look on the layer palette I have the bottom background layer and on top a Raster 1 layer.. which is the daisy layer. if you right click on that top layer on the palette.. then go up to RENAME. you can type a name for the layer.. where the words Raster 1 use to be.

Also by right clicking you can go to duplicate and that layer will be duplicated.

Below I show you I duplicated the daisy layer.. and hid the top daisy.. then applied an effect on that bottom daisy layer..

There are SO MANY things you can do to any graphic/tube.. Below I have duplicate the daisy layer 2 times.. the original one is the white daisy... then I colorized another daisy.. to blue.. then applied some plugin effects on the one that has a rainbow color effect on it.. then the top two layers on the layer palette I put on multiply mode.. which made them look see though.. just experiment... all you can.... the effects you can come up with are ENDLESS... that's just with the effects that come with PSP.. then when you added a bunch of plugins/filters to the mix.. oh wow......GO GO GO  lol....... so its only as limited as your imagination...

Have fun experimenting...

TOODLES

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