Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Learn about working with layers - how to create them, stack and reorder them, hide them, and delete them.
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
Layers on Layers on Layers - Instructions.docx59.1 KB Layers on Layers on Layers - Exercise.ai
1.5 MB Layers on Layers on Layers - Exercise Solution.ai
1.6 MB
Quick reference
Layers on Layers on Layers
Learn about working with layers - how to create them, stack and reorder them, hide them, and delete them.
When to use
Any time you are building a design or composition that you want to have more depth to it, you will want to take advantage of the ability to use layers.
Instructions
- Begin by opening the 'Layers on Layers on Layers - Exercise.ai' file.
- Double click each of the layers to rename them 'FIRST LAYER' and 'SECOND LAYER' as shown in the video.
- Place one of the shapes on top of the other and notice how one shape will be hidden.
- Click on the small triangle in the upper right corner of the layer name inside the Layers Panel to select which ever shape is on the bottom.
- Hold down the Shift Key and tap the right arrow a few times to move the bottom shape out from behind the shape that is on top.
- Drag the second layer into the first layer.
- Click on the small arrow just to the left of the layer name and icon to expand the contents of the layer.
- Notice that your second layer is now nested inside of the first layer.
Hints & tips
- Anytime you have multiple layers in a document it can be helpful to toggle the visibility of certain layers on or off by clicking on the small eye icon to the left of the layer name.
- If you want to prevent making changes to any of your layers you can also lock them by clicking in between the eye icon and the layer name to lock the layer. You will know that the layer is locked when you see a small icon that looks like a lock next to the layer.
- 00:05 In this lesson, I'd like to talk to you guys about one of the most important
- 00:09 things in Adobe Illustrator, and that is how to work with layers.
- 00:12 So right here, I have my GoSkills Illustrator doc one file already open, and
- 00:17 I wanna come up to the window menu and just choose layers from here or
- 00:21 you can press F7 on the keyboard.
- 00:23 Now once I do that,
- 00:24 you'll see that it kinda pops out from the side of the panels.
- 00:27 And another way that you can quickly access this, is just by clicking on this
- 00:31 icon here that just kind of looks like two squares stacked on top of each other.
- 00:36 And you'll see as I hover my cursor over this, that it says layers.
- 00:40 So by default, I will have one layer already set up here in Illustrator.
- 00:45 But if I click around a little bit, I can kinda see a few of these other options
- 00:50 in here, such as the ability to double click on the layer name and rename it.
- 00:55 Now I can call this whatever I want, just by double clicking and typing it in.
- 01:00 And I can also add other layers.
- 01:04 So if I come down to the bottom of the layers panel,
- 01:06 you'll see I have this option here called create new layer.
- 01:09 So once I click on that, it will add a second layer on top of our first.
- 01:14 Now let's say I had something on this layer.
- 01:17 I'm just going to create a basic square here just for demonstration purposes.
- 01:23 And let's say that this is all that's on my second layer.
- 01:26 So if I were to poke this little eyeball.
- 01:29 That toggles the visibility of the layer on and off.
- 01:32 Because there's nothing really on our first layer,
- 01:35 it's hard to tell the visibility of that layer whether it's on or not.
- 01:38 So let me just go ahead and copy by pressing Cmd + C,
- 01:42 this basic shape, turn off my second layer, and
- 01:46 then I'm going to paste the shape onto my first layer.
- 01:50 Okay, I'm just gonna quickly change the color of this to something else,
- 01:55 bring my layers panel back up, and now you'll see if I turn that
- 01:58 visibility of the first layer on and off, now you can see what's happening.
- 02:03 All right, and same thing with layer two.
- 02:05 I can just call this Second Layer, but
- 02:07 another nice thing about this is that you have the ability to reorder these layers.
- 02:13 So if I wanted to, let's just say I moved the shape
- 02:17 pretty much right on top of my other shape.
- 02:21 You can't really see what's on layer one now, because layer two is on top.
- 02:25 But if I turn off this layer, you can see the shape on the layer below.
- 02:30 You can also drag this layer down, just by clicking and dragging, and
- 02:34 now your first layer will be on top.
- 02:37 So it just re-orders anything that you have contained on these layers.
- 02:42 All right, and if I click inside this little drop down menu here,
- 02:45 you´ll be able to see exactly what´s on that layer,
- 02:48 it will kind of give you a breakdown of everything inside.
- 02:52 And we´ll be taking a little bit of a closer look at that down the road.
- 02:55 That´s kind of the basics of how can you work with these layers, but
- 02:59 you also have the ability to label these, if you want to indicate The selected art.
- 03:04 You can just click on this box in the upper right corner here,
- 03:06 that kinda looks like a triangle in the corner.
- 03:08 And that will actually select whatever you have on that layer.
- 03:13 Another way I could do that, is just come over here and click on the shape, and
- 03:17 it will automatically go to the first layer.
- 03:19 But if I wanted to select with some layer below or
- 03:22 the black box from the second layer,
- 03:24 I can do that just by clicking on this little triangle in the upper right corner.
- 03:29 And now, that will automatically select the square on our second layer.
- 03:35 So layers are very important because it allows you to stack and
- 03:40 reorder elements in an Illustrator file.
- 03:43 And it also helps you to reorganize things.
- 03:47 You can drop things inside of other layers.
- 03:50 So for example, if I just drag that second layer into our first layer, you'll
- 03:55 see that it's now contained inside of this group when I click this arrow down.
- 04:00 So this arrow will allow you to select individual things inside other layer,
- 04:06 so that's kind of way that you can, as we start to get a little bit of more complex,
- 04:12 you can actually kind of group or mask things in same layer.
- 04:16 But if I wanted to get rid of it, all I would have to do is just drag it outside,
- 04:20 and it's back on its own layer.
- 04:22 So nothing to worry there if you do that by accident.
- 04:26 Right here if I click and drag the first letter into the second layer,
- 04:30 now you'll see that this box is on top, but
- 04:34 I can still select either of these by clicking this shape in the corner,
- 04:39 and if I wanted to, I can just drag it back out like so.
- 04:42 So that’s kind of a basic breakdown of layers in how they work.
- 04:45 And we're gonna be working with layers a lot more once we move on.
- 04:49 But I just wanted to introduce you guys to this panel,
- 04:52 a few of different ways that you can access it, and showing you how they work.
- 04:56 So now that you've seen them in action, try some stuff out on your own.
- 04:59 I'm gonna give you guys the files so you can play around with ordering these layers
- 05:04 and perhaps moving them into each other, playing with the visibility and so forth.
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