Photoshop 7.0 Layers — The Complete Tutorial

By the Photoshop 7.0 Hub editorial team · Updated May 17, 2026 · 15-minute read

What a Layer Actually Is

The single biggest mental shift between beginner and intermediate Photoshop users is layers. If you imagine a single photograph as a printed page lying on a table, then a Photoshop document with three layers is three transparent sheets of acetate stacked on top of that page. You can paint on the top sheet, draw on the middle sheet, and slide the bottom sheet around — the printed page underneath is untouched. When you look at the stack from above, you see the combined picture; when you save as JPEG, that combined view is what is exported.

The Layers palette (open it from Window → Layers, or press F7) is the control room for the stack. Each row in the palette represents one sheet. The row at the top of the palette is the sheet on top of the stack. Click a row to make that sheet the active one — every tool, every adjustment, every paint stroke from that moment on affects only the active layer.

The Background Layer and Why You Always Duplicate It

When you open a JPEG in Photoshop 7.0, the document starts with a single layer called Background. The Background layer has a small padlock icon — it is locked. It cannot be moved, cannot contain transparent pixels, and is always at the bottom of the stack. The lock exists because Photoshop wants to make sure you have an unedited copy of your original photograph at the bottom of the stack.

The first thing every Photoshop user learns is to bypass the lock by duplicating the Background. Press Ctrl+J. A new layer called Layer 1 appears directly above the Background. This new layer is an exact pixel-for-pixel copy. Everything you do from this point onward you do on the copy — if you make a mistake, you delete the copy and start over from a perfectly preserved original. This habit is called non-destructive editing, and reaching for Ctrl+J automatically every time you open a photograph is the single most-used reflex in professional Photoshop work.

Creating Layers

There are six ways to create a new layer in Photoshop 7.0. Each is useful in different situations.

1. Duplicate the active layer. Ctrl+J. Most common. Copies the entire active layer (or the current selection on it) onto a new layer above.
2. Cut to a new layer. Ctrl+Shift+J. Cuts the current selection out of the active layer and places it on a new layer above, leaving a transparent hole.
3. New empty layer with dialog. Ctrl+Shift+N. Lets you name it and set blending mode/opacity up front.
4. New empty layer, no dialog. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N. Fastest for adding a scratch layer.
5. Drag a layer thumbnail onto the New Layer button. The small square icon at the bottom of the Layers palette duplicates that layer instantly.
6. Paste from clipboard. Anything you paste (Ctrl+V) arrives on a brand-new layer above the active one.

Opacity

Every layer except the locked Background has an opacity slider at the top of the Layers palette. The default is 100% — the layer is fully visible. Reduce it to 50% and the layer becomes half-transparent, letting the layer below show through. Reduce to 0% and the layer is invisible (though it is still there).

The single best use of opacity is to blend an effect with the original. For example: duplicate the Background, run a heavy sharpening filter on the copy, then lower the copy's opacity to 40%. The result is a sharpening effect that is 40% of the strength you applied — and you can fine-tune it after the fact by dragging the slider.

Quick shortcut: with the Move tool selected, the number keys on the keyboard set the active layer's opacity directly. 1 = 10%, 5 = 50%, 0 = 100%. Type two numbers quickly (4 then 5) and you get 45%.

Blending Modes

The dropdown labelled "Normal" at the top of the Layers palette is where blending modes live. A blending mode changes the mathematical formula by which the active layer combines with the layers beneath it. Photoshop 7.0 ships with 22 blending modes; in practice you use five of them constantly and the rest occasionally.

The five blending modes you must know

The classic exercise is this: duplicate the Background, change the duplicate's blending mode to Soft Light, and watch the photograph instantly gain contrast and saturation without any other adjustment. This is the basis of many Instagram-style presets — a single duplicate-and-blend.

Layer Masks — Non-Destructive Erasing

A layer mask is a black-and-white image attached to a layer that controls which parts of the layer are visible. White on the mask means the layer is fully visible; black means it is completely hidden; grey means partially transparent. Crucially, the mask does not delete pixels — it only hides them. Paint white on the mask and the hidden pixels come back exactly as they were.

This makes the layer mask the most important non-destructive tool in Photoshop 7.0. Anything you would have erased — you mask instead, and you keep the option to bring it back.

How to add and use a layer mask

1. Click the small white circle-in-square icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. A white rectangle appears next to the layer thumbnail. That is the mask.
2. Click on the mask thumbnail to make sure it is selected (not the layer thumbnail). You will see a thin border around whichever is active.
3. Press D to set the foreground colour to black and the background to white.
4. Press B for the Brush tool. Use [ and ] to set a comfortable size.
5. Paint on the image with black where you want to hide pixels on this layer. Press X to swap to white and paint where you want to bring them back.

The classic use case: place a portrait on top of a plain background, add a layer mask to the portrait layer, and paint black around the edges of the subject to "erase" the original background without actually deleting it. If your selection is imperfect, you simply paint white to fix it. Compared to the Eraser tool, a layer mask is always recoverable.

Adjustment Layers

An adjustment layer is a special layer that applies a tonal or colour adjustment to every layer below it — without changing the pixels of those layers. Open the menu with the small black-and-white circle icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Photoshop 7.0 offers nine adjustment-layer types: Levels, Curves, Colour Balance, Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Selective Colour, Channel Mixer, Gradient Map, Invert, Threshold, Posterize.

The advantage over running an adjustment directly (e.g., Ctrl+L for Levels on the active layer) is that the adjustment is editable forever. Double-click the adjustment-layer thumbnail and the original dialog reopens with your previous settings — change them and the rest of the document updates live.

Each adjustment layer also comes with a built-in mask, so you can paint black on parts where you do not want the adjustment to apply. This is how professional retouchers add Curves contrast only to a face, or darken only the sky, or shift the hue of just the sweater.

Reordering Layers

The visual stacking order matches the palette order — top of palette is on top of the image. To move a layer:

• Drag it up or down in the palette.
• Ctrl+] moves the active layer up one slot.
• Ctrl+[ moves it down one slot.
• Ctrl+Shift+] moves it to the very top.
• Ctrl+Shift+[ moves it to the very bottom (just above the locked Background).

Grouping (Clipping Masks)

Photoshop 7.0 does not have layer "folders" the way newer Photoshop versions do. Instead it has clipping masks — a way to tell one layer to use the layer below it as a kind of stencil. The layer above is only visible where the layer below has pixels.

To create a clipping mask: Alt-click the line in the Layers palette between two layers (the cursor changes to a small overlapping-circles icon when you hover over the line). The upper layer indents and gets a small downward-pointing arrow — it is now clipped to the layer below. Or select the upper layer and press Ctrl+G.

The classic use case: place a photograph above a piece of text, clip the photograph to the text, and the photo now fills the letterforms — appearing only inside the shape of the text. This is the single most-used graphic-design effect in Photoshop 7.0.

Merging and Flattening

Sometimes you want to combine several layers into one — to save memory, to simplify the document, or to apply a filter that works only on a single layer.

• Ctrl+E merges the active layer with the layer directly below it.
• Ctrl+Shift+E merges every visible layer into one.
• Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E creates a brand-new layer at the top that contains the merged-visible result, leaving every original layer intact. This "stamp visible" is invaluable when you want a single flat copy for filtering while keeping the editable original layers below.
• Flatten Image (Layer menu) collapses everything into the Background. This is destructive — use Save As to keep the layered original.

Worked Example: A Photo Retouch With Layers

Here is a complete retouch using every concept above. Open any portrait photograph.

1. Ctrl+J — duplicate the Background. Always step one.
2. On Layer 1, use the Healing Brush (J) to remove blemishes. Set the brush slightly larger than each blemish, Alt-click a clean area, click on the blemish.
3. Click the adjustment-layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Curves. Drag the centre of the curve slightly up to brighten midtones. Click OK.
4. Click the Curves adjustment-layer mask, press Ctrl+I to invert the mask to black (hiding the brightening everywhere), then paint white with a soft brush only on the face. The brightening now affects the face but nothing else.
5. Click the adjustment-layer icon again and choose Hue/Saturation. Increase Saturation to +12. The whole image gets slightly more colourful.
6. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E — stamp visible. A new merged layer appears at the top.
7. Filter → Sharpen → Unsharp Mask at Amount 100%, Radius 1.0, Threshold 0. Click OK.
8. Lower this top layer's opacity to 60% — final sharpening at 60% strength.
9. Ctrl+Shift+S to Save As a PSD with all layers preserved. Ctrl+Shift+S again to export a JPEG.

Total time: under five minutes. Every step is reversible by dragging the corresponding layer to the bin or hiding it with its eye icon.

Frequently Asked Questions