Photoshop Layer Comps

If you don't already know about Layer Comps, you should get to know them. Layer Comps provide a way to capture multiple looks/concepts or multiple pages of a web site that you are designing without having to set up multiple folders or create multiple photoshop documents. To turn them on, go to Window/Layer Comps. The window will look like this. In this example, I've set up three pages of a website to demo to a client. To create a layer comp, click on the little page icon to the left of the trash icon. Give it an appropriate name and click ok. You should see a layout icon next to the name of your layer comp. You can make some adjustments to your design, such as adding elements, turning off elements, and changing the placement of items. Then create a new layer comp for that view. You can then toggle back and forth to compare which version you like best. In the case of a website, you can set up multiple page concepts in a single photoshop document, and reuse the same header, footer, etc. Just make sure that if you have a new element, that it exists on a new layer. For example, don't edit the same text layer in two layer comps and expect it to be different in each layer comp. The placement of the text block can change but once you change the content, it's changed in all layer comps. Which can be a big time saver too. If you like one layer comp view but want to change something, then click on that layer comp in the layer comp window. Make the change and then click on the refresh icon (next to the new layer comp icon). This will save your change for that layer comp. Layer comps are not always ideal or perfect. I don't have time to go into all the ways that can happen, but once you start using them, you'll learn how best to utilize them. See the post on saving layer comps to PDFs for a great time saver when preparing your layer comps to present to the client or boss.