 Hi, this is Adam with PhotonurgyNight.com and today I want to show you how to organize your layers inside of Photoshop. Today I want to talk about organization, but not organization in Lightroom. Actually we're going to talk about organization inside of Photoshop. As you can see here I started to work on a photograph that I had taken out in the Moab Utah area and as I went through and processed this photograph to take it from this to this. Pretty dramatic results, but definitely took quite a bit of layers in order to get it to where I wanted it to be and at the moment I've moved the layers panel over here so that you could see it a little bit better. Typically the layers panel is over and docked on the side, but I really wanted you to get a sense of just looking at the layer panel and nothing else and as we're looking at the layer panel, if you're not familiar with Photoshop or you're just getting started with Photoshop, this could look pretty intimidating and pretty overwhelming and so one of the things that I want to show you today are three easy tips to organize your layer panel so that it doesn't look like this and it becomes a little bit easier to understand. So let's jump into it and I'm going to show you the first organizational tip inside of layers. So the first thing that I like to do is actually group layers together into categories and typically when I'm editing a photograph, I've broken this down into three categories. I start with the cleanup process, then I move to the creative process, then I do a little bit of sharpening. So those are the three things that I'm going to break this down to and just by doing this one step alone, you'll see how much different this layer panel works. So let me show you how to group these layers together. I know that my layers from this layer down here to this layer right here is part of the cleanup process. So all you're going to do is select the layer that starts or ends that particular grouping. You're going to hold Shift and then you're going to click on the last layer. So basically I'm selecting these three layers by holding my Shift key. Now in order to place this into a folder, the easiest way to go about doing this is to hit Command G on a Mac. If you're a PC user, it'll be Ctrl G. So it's Ctrl G or Command G. You'll see here that that places this section into a group. I'm going to go ahead and do the same thing for the creative process. So I know from here all the way up to here are all of the layers that I did just for the creative process. So again I'm going to hold Command G or Ctrl G on a PC and that's going to group those layers together. And that only leaves the last and final thing which was sharpening. And in this case I only have one layer. So you could choose to put it in a group or not put it in a group. I'm going to put it in a group because I think it actually looks a little bit better and it's a little bit cleaner. And even though it's only one layer, you can still put it in a folder. So I'm going to just hit Command G and that's going to place that into that folder. And so now I have group one, group two and group three. Already this is looking a hundred times better. Let's take you to step number two in organizing your layers panel. So for me, step number two is actually renaming layers or renaming groups. And in this case, group one, group two and group three is okay. But it doesn't really tell me exactly what I did. So if I head down and select this grouping here, group number one and I double click on the actual word, group number one, it'll give me the ability to rename this group. So I'm going to go ahead and call this the cleanup process. And then I'm just going to hit return and that'll lock that in. I'm going to go ahead and rename the other two groups doing the exact same thing. And there you have it. So I have put all of my layers into groups and then I've renamed these groups so that they're better understanding. You can rename any layers and I actually suggest as you go through this process that you do a better job of renaming your layers as well. As you create new layers, it's just going to give you a generic default thing, something like layer two or layer three or layer four. In this case, I use Nick filters to reduce the noise in the picture. But if I've forgotten what define two is, I can actually rename this and say noise reduction. This will give me a better idea of what exactly I did on that layer. Same thing with here. If I if I were to toggle this layer on and off, I know that I removed some rocks from the photo. And I also know that I removed spots from the photo. So get in the habit of renaming your layers, especially if you save this file and come back to it a couple of days later or maybe even weeks or months later, you're going to have to go through and figure out what these layers mean if you don't take the time to rename them. So that's it. Rename your groups, rename your layers and that's step number two in organizing your layers. Let's head on over to step number three and the final tip that I have for organizing your layers inside a Photoshop for the last and final thing. What we're going to do is actually color each one of these groups. Let me show you why I think this is important. If I go back and open up all these groups to where we were when we started. When you look at it, it's very difficult to decipher even with the groups and even with the folders. It's really hard to tell where a group starts and where a group stops. And the reason is because it's just all in this vertical line here. But if I were to use something like color labels to identify what layer is part of what group, it'll become much easier for me to see what is separated from what. And that's exactly what I'm going to do here. And it's very simple. All you have to do is head on over to where the eyeball of the group is and right click. And when you right click over the eyeball, you'll actually get these color labels that appear. So I can choose to add a color or remove a color. That's what no color means. And I can pick any color that I want. So I'm going to go ahead and just add blue. And when I add blue, not only does it add it to the group, but it also adds it to all the layers that have been put into that group. So if I go to the creative process layer here and right click over the eyeball and change this to yellow, you'll notice how all of the layers within that group have now been colored. I'll do the same thing for the last group here, the cleanup process. I'll right click and change this color to red. And so there you have it. Even if I close these groups down, you'll still see each of the colors in this case, blue, yellow and red. But it's when you open the group when it's most effective because now I know that all of these layers are part of that group process. So there you have it. That's three easy ways to organize your layers as they get a little bit more involved and a little bit more complex. This will make sure that you know exactly what you're doing at all times. I recommend that you go ahead and give it a try and leave a comment down below and let us know what you think about this video. Subscribe to our channel if you haven't already done so. Give us a thumbs up if you liked this video. And as always, thank you so much for watching and we'll catch you in the next episode.