just about every digital drawing software utilizes layers in some way in Adobe Fresco there are three different types of layers four five different six six sort there's actually six different types of layers if you really think about it in this video we're going to talk about all of them the differences between them we're talking about different things you can do with your layers to control the way your image looks layers are just like sheets of transparent paper stacked up so you can keep things separate they're like uh an onion they smell bad that's the joke even if you think you have a solid handle on layers I think there's probably something in this video that you're going to learn because there's a lot of different stuff that you can do with layers in Adobe Fresco that I didn't know about when I started and even well into using it I feel like I'm learning new stuff all the time let's slice this onion up I think we got to leave the onion thing behind now you may be thinking how on Earth are there six different types of layers well let me tell you what they are first one is pixel-based layers this is just a layer for Pixel based art it's as simple as that the next kind is a vector layer a vector layer is the same thing but for Vector art these need to be on a separate layer from pixel art so that they can maintain their Vector you can't have pixel and Vector on the same layer because they're not made the same way so they they just can't exist in each other's world it's like uh The Little Mermaid he's a human you're a mermaid I don't care Ariel and uh that dumb guy the next kind of layer is a pict picture layer if you go and import an image into your Fresco document it's going to come in as a picture layer the cool thing about picture layers is that you can move them outside of your artboard to use as reference and they're not going to get cut off you'll still be able to see them if you try to do this with a pixel layer and you move it outside your artboard it's just going to get cut off and it'll be gone there is a setting to make that outside of the preview board thing work and I believe it's defaulted to to work but if it doesn't you just go up into your settings and then you choose artboard preview and make sure that is uh checked the next type of layer is a text layer if you use the text tool and you start making something that out of text it's going to make a new layer you do have the option to convert that text layer to either a pixel layer or a vector layer if you want to further customize it and use it as just like a regular drawing and there's adjustment layers with these it just makes a new layer and that's where you can do your you know color adjustments Hue saturation brightness contrast all that kind of thing and then the last one is a motion when you start using motion it's going to convert your layer into a motion layer all right so let's dive into the side menu over here there's a lot of stuff over here and it can be a little overwhelming at first but it's not that bad just stick with me and you will have a good understanding of all the stuff that's there the first thing you'll see is just your layers when this is toggled on you will see your layers they'll just show up right here if you don't want to see them you just tap it again and they're gone below that is your layer properties in this menu you can control your blend mode which which is just how the art works with the other layers this is great when you are doing some stuff layering colors to create new colors like I often do when I'm using like the Razer brushes you don't know what I'm talking about here no big deal I'll link a video below and you can check it out afterwards and then another one that I use relatively often is screen screen is a fun one when you want to use some like overall texture and I'll quickly show you how this works when I tap it here doesn't really do anything besides hide that layer but I think if I show you how it works you'll understand a little bit more feel this in so if we come over to our layers property and we change this to screen you'll see nothing happened the reason nothing happened is because screen allows the artwork to come through whatever is black on that layer so because the whole layer is black everything comes through if instead of it all being black fill this layer in white we don't see anything but now if I paint on this layer in Black you'll see anywhere I paint that layer comes through so what you'll do is you'll make a new layer you will fill it in white and then you will get a texture brush I'll just grab one from this Woodland Wonderland retro Supply Co set which I will link below if you're interested and now in Black I'm just going to draw in some texture and if we now set this layer to screen you'll see our artwork is there but we're getting this texture and we can kind of control how much texture goes in there pretty neat within the layer properties you'll see below blend mode is opacity so here you can just bring down the opacity of the layer and you will start to see the layers that are below it shining through showing through not really shining just showing and you can adjust this however you want you want just a little bit or you want a lot that's how you do it below that you will see grids this isn't part of the layers experience so we're going to skip that for now but it just allows you to make some grids for your artwork if you would like that kind of thing below that is just for one your sharing your document with other people and you want to leave comments back and forth you don't have to worry about that it's not part of layers it's not what we're talking about in this video you hit the eyeball the layer turns off you'll see a little line through it that's how you know it's off shows up in the icon and on the layer itself you turn that back on you can do that with a group of layers as well and speaking of grouping layers you can group layers by just holding and dragging them onto another layer and then you get a little group full of layers just handy and if you want to move them individually all you have to do is go inside that folder by double tapping and then you can move them individually on their own below that is the clipping mask option what this does is it makes the layer you have selected become a clipping mask to the layer below what a clipping mask does is it makes it so that the artwork on that layer only shows up within the artwork on the layer below so for example if I select this layer with the blue word on it and make that a clipping mask to layers you'll see the blue only show shows up within the artwork on the layer below and on the layer below we just have the word layers so we turn that off it's obviously going to turn off the blue as well so when something is a clipping mask like this you can undo it by just tapping that clipping mask button again this can be a fun feature if you want to like have a texture or an image appear within a shape so for example if I come over here to the image tool and I go and grab a photo like my dumb face from my last thumbnail I can make this a clipping mask and then I can move it around and it only appears within those letters isn't that fun wow can you believe it the next item is adjustment layers we tap on this we'll see some options here we've got clip brightness contrast Hue saturation color balance I'm going to let you in on a little secret I've actually never used the clip one before and I'm only realizing that right now I don't even know what it does so we're going to find out together let's do clip okay oh oh oh it's not I know what it does it's just an extra way to do it we're going to come back to this there's three kinds of adjustment layers that you can do there is brightness contrast Hue saturation and color balance we do brightness contrast you know what this does it just adjusts the brightness and contrast now you'll notice it is affecting all of the layers because it is on top of all these layers when something is above the layer it affects things below unless it's a clipping bth so for example we've got this brightness all the way up it's super bright but we really only wanted to do it to the can you believe it layer so what we can do is clip it to that layer with a clipping mask and that's what that clip was it just allows you to set it from the beginning and I didn't realize that I thought I always just do it afterwards that's a a little timesaver tip clip it you'll see it's only affecting that layer pretty handy now let's say for example we are on the middle blue layer and we do a hue saturation one just move this saturation way over like this you'll see it's effect ing the layer and wow but not the can you believe it because that layer is above the others and again we can still clip this specifically to just that one layer if we wanted to you can also slip an adjustment layer to a group works just the same a little Pro tip is if you are working on a color system and you're not sure if there's enough value or contrast within that color palette you're working with if you turn this on and everything looks like it's the same gray you need to adjust your value a little bit so there's a little bit more visual interest within your image now below that there is three dots which means there's a whole lot going on under there so we tap on this we've got all these different actions that pertain to layers you'll see the first one is add a layer it's just on there again even though there's one right up above it there there's the hide one again you know we already have a button for that why it's in here again who knows we've got hide all other layers which is a handy thing so when you use that it's going to hide everything but the layer you have selected then you could show all other layers to turn it back on we've got clear layer which will erase the artwork within that layer and we've got delete layer which will just get rid of the layer alt together if you make a selection in one of your layers you can copy that selection next you'll see paste selection this is if you have something selected with a selection tool for example if I'm on the layers layer and I use the magic wand and I select this L I can come over over to my layer actions and I can go to copy selection and then I can go to paste selection and now I have this L on its own layer below that you'll see select multiple this is so that you can select multiple layers at once if you wanted to cut a layer from one document and paste it into another document that's also another thing you can copy and paste from one file into another file so I could cut a layer from here close this open up a new document or an existing document and then paste that layer into that document below that we have create empty mask so if we tap that you'll see our layer gets a little side action thing it's a little a side layer this is a layer mask so if I come down to the bottom and I tap this hide layer option and then fill this in Black you'll see we've got this red layer over everything and this is this is a mask now if we toggle back we can see that's the artwor work and then this is the mask and what it's hiding so if I come back to reveal layer and grab a brush then I can just sort of start painting in the area that I want to reveal and you'll see in that little red icon the area that I just did as reveal so when we click off of this it's just going to show you what it's previewing like the cool thing about this is it's non-destructive within the layer so we've got like all this cool texture here but the original artwork is still intact and you can toggle it on and off with this little mask button on the right another thing I'd like to point out here is that the wow layer is a vector layer you'll notice by the little circle icon on that layer and we're getting a pixel-based texture on top of that vector layer so we're able to have Vector artwork bring in this texture but not have to convert that original artwork to a pixel layer this is like the one way you can have pixel and Vector together in one layer because it's sort of not really the same it's a layer with a with a piggyback on it so if I come back to my vector layer and grab a vector brush I can draw on this layer and it'll you know show up in the artwork but it's still affected by that mask so we can come back to the mask layer coloring as much of that as we want below that you'll see mask layer contents so what this does is instead of doing an empty mask when you select this it creates a mask based on what is already on that artwork so for example on this blue layer it made a mask around those letters the next option is for reference layers what this does is it allows you to use the Paint Bucket to fill in color of that artwork on its own separate layer so this is really helpful when you're doing Line work and you want to keep the line work separate from the fill color so let's say I drew this face of a bird a very good bird if we're being honest and it has these feathers up here and it I I don't know what to tell you this is what we drew we want to keep this artwork just pristine because it's very good and I want to keep my color separate so what we do is we come over onto our layer where you'll also see that same menu repopulated you can either get this layer actions menu over here with the dots or by just tapping on the layer itself so a lot of this stuff feels like there's so much but there it's just sort of repeating so what we can do here is set as reference and when your layer is a reference you'll notice it's got that little reference layer icon over it so now if we make a new layer come over here and grab a nice orange for the beak I can fill this in grab this red fill that in give it some yellow eyes this terrible thing here but you'll see when we look at the layers we've got the line work layer we turn that off and we just have the color layer nice and handy when you're done using it you want to remember to turn off the reference because otherwise you may draw something on another layer and try to fill it in and you can't figure out why it's just filling in the whole page it's because your reference layer is set to the duck lines got to turn off the duck lines all right get this duck out of my face I need you to edit that duck into a good drawing okay no not it doesn't have to be a duck just anything that's good lock layer lock the layer can't mess with it it's locked can't do anything sometimes accidentally lock layers and I don't understand what's happening and I go oh it's locked unlock the layer merge down those layers become one layer a little warning you'll notice that wow as you remember is a vector layer but this layer is not if I just casually merge this down you'll see didn't warn me it didn't say anything however my wow artwork is no longer vector no you'll see there's one icon on this layer it is a pixel layer because as I said before vectors and pixels cannot Coexist on the same layer they cannot they their realities will never [Music] touch this is why you can't use pixel brushes as as Vector which is a question I'm asked all the time they're they're just they're so different they're not even in the same world so if you it's important that your artwork is Vector be extra careful not to merge it accidentally with a pixel layer because it will be contaminated with the pixels the magic math will be gone forever now something that you can do with pixel layers but not with Vector layers is lock the transparency so what that means is when you are on a pixel layer if you come over here to lock transparency you can grab another color and then color on this layer and it's only going to show up within the artwork on that layer it won't let you color Anywhere But Where there is already artwork this video is actually part of a series of deep dives into different aspects of adobe Fresco there's another one that goes into all the different aspects of brushes pixel brushes Vector brushes live brushes the other goes into the ins and outs of Selections in the transform tool including liquefy you can click on one right here I think you'll find it helpful and um good talk thank you