This is a Illustrator tutorial for beginner level users of Illustrator. I am using Illustrator CS2.

Symbols are a very handy tool in Illustrator and can make the life of a designer quite a bit easier. This introductory tutorial will go over Symbol basics and show you where to find the menus and commands you will need to start using symbols in your artwork.

1. What is a symbol?

A SYMBOL is basically a prepackaged art object that is stored in the Symbols Palette. Symbols can be used multiple times throughout your artwork without having to recreate or duplicate the object. Each time a symbol appears in a document is considered an “instance”. Each instance is linked to the same object in the Symbols Palette. Similar to style sheets, this allows you to edit the symbol within the palette and all instances of that symbol will be updated. This can save loads of time and reduces file size greatly.

2. Locate the Symbols Palette

In the default workspace, the Symbols palette appears bundled alongside the Color Swatches and Brushes palette. To open the Symbols palette, go to Window > Symbols. While the palette shown below does not contain any symbols, the default palette will usually contain a few standard symbols.

3. Finding Symbols in Illustrator

Illustrator comes with pre-loaded Symbol Libraries containing a wide variety of art objects that you may find useful. To access the Symbol Libraries go to Window > Symbol Libraries > Pick a Library. For the purpose of this tutorial I have chosen the Flowers library.

4. Adding Symbols to your Symbols Palette

Clicking on a symbol in the Flower Library will automatically add it to my Symbols Palette. You can also select mulitple flowers and select Add to Symbols from the drop down menu at the top of the library window.

5. Placing Symbols onto the Artboard

There are a few ways to add a symbol to your document. The easiest way is to select the symbol in the Symbols Palette and drag it to where you want it to appear on the artboard.

You can also place the symbol by selecting it in the palette and click on the Place Symbol Instance button at the bottom of the Symbols Palette.

The last way is to select the symbol and choose Place Symbol Instance from the Symbols Palette menu.

6. Using Symbols in your Artwork

There are lots of benefits to using symbols in Illustrator. For instance, by using symbols and the symbol tools you can:

The subsequent parts of my “Simply Symbols” tutorial series will go over each of these benefits and how to effectively use symbols. Some of the most important reasons to use symbols are listed above, but as you become more familiar with these powerful tools and how to use them you will likely find you own reasons to dig symbols!

Look for part of “Simply Symbols”  2 coming next week!

This is a beginner tutorial. I am using Photoshop CS2, a.k.a. Photoshop 9.0.2. on a PC.

For many users new to Photoshop, the program is a new playground of treats with so many options, they don’t even know where to start once an image is opened! If this sounds like you, then this may be a tutorial for you. One of the basic features of Photoshop is Layers. Here we’ll talk about what they are, how they work, and how you can use them.

Most often when you open Photoshop, your Layers palette is already open. If yours isn’t, from the main Photoshop menu select Window > Layers. This opens your Layers palette. None of the options on the palette are available to you until you open a document, so let’s start a blank document to learn from. Select File > New, and in the window select 500px x 500px at 72 pixels/inch with a transparent background.

In the Photoshop default settings, a transparent background looks like a grey and white checkerboard. On your final image this is transparent, or see-through. There really is no checkerboard pattern at all, it’s as clear as glass. It’s only there so you can tell where the transparency is in your file. If you print it, the checkered part will be no color – it will not print.

Our start:

I think of Layers as clear sheets of plastic, like the ones you see for sale at Disney World – clear acetate comic “cels” with cartoons painted on them. Each Photoshop Layer is a clear sheet that you can see through, or “paint” on. And if you stack them on top of each other, the see-through parts are still see-through, while the painted parts aren’t transparent anymore.

For example, if you put a photo of your dog on one layer, and a blue circle on a layer UNDER that one, the photo of the dog hides the blue circle. But if you put the blue circle layer on top, chances are you’ll see a dog with a blue circle on it. Like this:

Why are layers important?

Layers let you work on one element of an image without disturbing other elements. If you have a photo of a house and want to change the color of the front door without bothering anything else in the photo, you can copy and paste the door of the house onto its own layer and adjust the color there.

Or, let’s say you want to crop yourself out of a photo and put yourself on a solid blue background. You can edit out the background of your photo, leaving your smiley, pretty face, and put a solid blue layer below that layer. (no, that’s not me.)

Adobe says, “In addition, special features such as adjustment layers, fill layers, and layer styles let you create sophisticated effects.”

A new file in Photoshop has a single layer. The number of additional layers is limited only by your computer’s memory.

Understanding the Layers Palette:

To learn how to work with Layers, you need to understand the options available to you on the Layers Palette. The Layers palette lists all layers, groups, and layer effects in your file.

Start by pressing the arrow at the top right of the palette. You’ll get a ‘fly-out’ menu. I’ll explain it here in order of appearance (remember, I’m in CS2):

Dock to palette well: this permanently places (docks) your palette to the well of palettes in the top right of your Photoshop screen.

New Layer: click this to add a new layer above the one you have selected. The keyboard shortcut info is avail here too.

Duplicate Layer: creates a new layer that is a duplicate of the layer your currently have selected.

Delete Layer: Deletes the layer you have selected.

Delete Hidden Layers: Next to each layer is an eye icon. By clicking this eye, you can toggle if that layer is visible in your file or not. This way you can hide things without deleting them permanently. If your file looks great, even though you know there are layers you have created along the way while making your file and they are now hidden, you can use this to delete all hidden layers in your file to reduce the file size.

New Group: Choose this to create a new layer group. Saving your Layers in Layer groups helps you organize your layers. If you have too many layers, your palette may grow too long to view on screen, so you can group related layers together in a folder for easy organization. You can also use Layer groups to apply the same attributes and masks to multiple layers at the same time. (You can also nest groups within other groups.) Once you have created a new group, a folder appears in the layers palette that you can drag other layers in to. This folder is collapsable to create space on the layers palette. It is helpful to name your layer group so you know what is in the folder without having to click on it to expand it to find out.

Here you can see I have a layer group called “elephants” and within that group are 3 layers: gold elephant, purple elephant and red elephant. The Layer group shown here is expanded – meaning you can see which layers are inside it. (You can view its contents). You can click the small grey arrow that is pointing down to the left of the “elephants” folder icon, and the group will contract – hiding its contents.

New Group from Layers: If you have a few layers that you would like to group together, you can highlight those layers (hold the ctrl key while clicking on them), and then use this function to make a group from the selected layers.

Lock all Layers in Group: When selecting this option, you’ll get a pop-up window asking if you want to lock the transparency, image, position or lock all. Lock Transparency means you can now only edit non-transparent parts of the layer. Lock Image is the opposite – you can’t modify the layer’s pixels using painting tools. Lock Position prevents the layer’s pixels from being moved. Lock all will make that layer completely uneditable. If one or 2 of the Lock options is selected, a hollow lock symbol appears on that layer. If Lock All is selected, a dark lock appears on that layer. (As shown above.) When something is locked, it can not be edited until unlocked.

Group into New Smart Object: Select layers and then click here to combine them into one smart object. We’ll discuss Smart Objects in detail in the future.

Edit Contents: Opens the original smart object selected for editing in its native program. If it is an Illustrator file, this will load Illustrator on your machine. If it is a Photoshop file, it will come up as a new file in Photoshop.

Layer Properties: Change the name of a layer or Layer Group, or color-code them for easier layer management.

Blending Options: Opens your Layer Style palette to apply options such as drop shadow, embossing, stroking, etc. We’ll get to each of those in another tutorial.

Create Clipping Mask: First you must understand what a clipping mask is to use this. It’s probably easier for me to show you than to tell you. If you have 2 layers, the transparent pixels of the bottom or base layer mask the content of layers above it.

In this example I have a layer that says “HAIR” and a layer above it of a woman in a beauty shop. You can’t see the word HAIR because it is hidden on the layer under the lady.

Now if I select the top layer, and then click on the small arrow on top right of the layer palette – allowing my menu to be visible, and then click “create clipping mask”, the word HAIR is visble but the letters are filled in by the lady. The non-transparent pixels of th bottom layer are seen in SHAPE but the content seen is from the layer above.

OR, the transparent part of the bottom layer (the space around and between the letters) acts as a cookie cutter and defines the SHAPE of the top layer, while maintaining the previous image of the top layer.

Remember, the grey and white checkerboard is the transparent area. It can’t be seen. If I add an aqua layer behind both of these, and stroke (outline) the text, you can see it even better…

If you decide the best part of the image can’t be seen in the mask (like if I want you to see more hair and less white space here), you can select the topmost layer of the clipping mask (here it is the photo of the girl) and move it around by dragging on your image.

Link Layers: If you link layers together, they will move around together until unlinked. Blending options can still be applied individually to the layers.

Select Linked Layers: This highlights all the linked layers. It comes in handy if you have many linked layers that are no longer right on top of each other on your layers palette.

Merge Down: You can merge 2 adjacent layers or groups by selecting the top one and then choosing Merge Down. All masks and blending options are applied and no longer editable (the layers are now flattened.)

Merge Visible: merges all visible layers and groups in an image into one layer. All masks and blending options are no longer available (the layers are now flattened.)

Flatten Image: Stop right there! Do not pass GO! Do not collect $200. Always use this function with CAUTION. Flattening your image merges all the layers into one locked background layer. All hidden layers are discarded. Any transparent areas that remain will be filled with white. You can no longer edit specific layers or their blending options. I strongly suggest saving as a .psd before you flatten an image, and then save your flattened image with a different name because you never know when you’ll want to go back and edit an image you’ve already spent 3 hours on. (or a client asks you to.) Flattening reduces file size. 

Animation Options: Clicking this allows you to toggle the appearance of animation buttons on the layers palette. They are circled in the image below…

Palette Options: This changes what you view in the Layers Palette. You can remove the layer thumbnail and change its size, you can see the thumbnail within the confines of your document or of the layer itself. If you check the option at the bottom about default layers, then when you add an adjustment layer, a layer mask is included. Having this checked is the default.

Beyond the flyout menu…

Just under the word “Layers” at the top of the layers palette, is a drop down box starting with the word Normal and ending with Luminosity. Here you can adjust the blending mode of your file. To the right of that is the opacity percentage. You can change the opacity of a layer by typing in a new percentage, clicking in the box and using your arrow keys to make the percentage number go up or down, or i fyou hold your mouse over the word “opacity” you’ll see a finger with an arrow under it appear. This is a pop-up slider that you can drag, and you’ll see the percentage amount go up and down as you drag. You cannot change the opacity of a background layer or a locked layer – you must unlock it first.

On the row below these tools are the Layer locking options (defined above) and the fill percentage. Opacity affects any layer styles and blending modes applied to the layer, but Fill affects the pixels of the layer without affecting the opacity of any layer effects that have been applied to the layer.

Below that your layers appear. Here are some of the layer icons defined:

Finally, across the bottom of the Layers palette are a few more icons:
The first (from the left) is supposed to look like the link of a chain and allows you to link/unlink layers. The next one allows you to add a layer style. You can also right-click on a layer and select belnding option to do this. Next is the option to add a layer mask. We’ll define masking in another tutorial. Next you can create a new fill or adjustment layer. Adjustment layers let you manipulate lighting, color and exposure. Fill layers let you adjust colors, patterns and gradients. The next icon looks like a small folder and lets you create a new group. Next is “create a new layer”. You’ll use this little square a lot! Finally, clicking the little trash can lets you delete a layer.

You may notice many of the icon options on the layers palette are also available from the fly-out menu, keyboard shortcuts, or when you right-click a layer. Adobe is great at giving users many options for performing functions because we all use the same programs differently and learn differently. I’m a right-clicker myself!

Which brings me to this: take your 500×500 px image we started with and add a new layer. Then right-click on that layer and you will see many repeated options that I have already defined for you. They are just restructured so you can select a layer and the function you want to do in one step – by simply right-clicking – instead of clicking once to select a layer and moving the mouse to the arrow at the top and clicking again to get the fly-out menu.

I hope this helps you understand layers and their functions a bit more.
Now for a simple exercise:

Here is our HAIR girl from before. You can right click on her, copy her, create a new document in Photoshop and paste her. Then you’ll have the same photo.

See the hot pink kiss mark on her tissue? Let’s add another kiss mark to the tissue…

I used my Elliptical marquee tool to select the kiss area of the tissue. Once it was surrounded by dotted lines (or “dancing ants” as I call them), I hit CTRL-C to copy and CTRL-V to paste. This pasted the kiss on its own layer.

The new kiss had too much tissue wrinkle area to blend in with the current photo, so I used my magic wand tool with the tolerance set to 14 to remove much of the white around the new kiss mark. I placed the new kiss so it slightly overlapped the hand at the bottom left and lowered the opacity of that layer to 70%. Then I used my eraser tool to erase the bit of the kiss that overlapped the hand, so it appeared the new kiss was disappearing under her hand.

For a finishing touch, I used my blur tool with a strength of 60% to blur the edges of the new kiss on the right & top slightly. (Sample all layers was NOT checked.)

Here is my final image: