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Working with Layers - Digital Painting with Corel Painter 11 and 12Digital Painting Tips with Corel Painter 11 - Working With Layers
Collapsing and Grouping Layers: This is a very simple thing to do and I don't know why I haven't made better use of it. Probably because I do Iterative Saves FAIRLY FREQUENTLY!
I typed that in caps by mistake, then decided to leave it because it is really good advice! I have lost more work than I care to admit, by Corel crashing without doing it's little 'Save Open documents' first (which I have learned doesn't always work, so don't feel too relieved yet!)
Look in the Recovered folder for your lost work, and if it has saved some make sure you write the saved files names down before you close Corel. It's easy to forget exactly what you were looking for unless all your files are Untitled ... then you will be out of luck because they'll all start with "Unt"!
I have noticed that Corel tends to crash when you have multiple layers open (more than 5 or so), so I am going to use these Collapse and Group Layers features more often. This is better than dropping the layer to the Canvas because it remains much more editable as a layer.
 In the "crashing range" so I want to do something about this. I purposely had kept all these layers because the tree and rocks were experimental elements and I decided they looked a mess and needed to be redone or deleted altogether. This is a definite advantage over traditional watercolours media.
 I selected all the layer by holding down the Shift button. Then I opened the menu on the bottom of the Layers Palette, chose Collapse and voila all those layers have been collapsed into one.
 Using the Layer Adjuster Tool:
It's much easier to see what effect having this layer removed from the painting would look like, or you can move the layer around by using the Layer Adjuster Tool. I moved the layer in the illustration below and obviously don't want my tree in the middle of the creek...(or do I? Lol!), but it shows you what I mean.
 I hope this helps clear up some of the mystery about Layers for you. They are powerful tools and I can't imagine painting digitally without using them. If I were painting with traditional watercolour media I would compare it to the frequent layers and glazes used in watercolour technique.
PS (As always, please feel free to comment and ask questions. No question is too silly, I have been using Corel Painter for 5 years and have never collapsed my layers before...duh!) The beauty of this program is that you can learn something new everyday, and never run out of things to learn and have fun with! (Shhhsh...don't tell my husband it's fun and not all work or he'll have me filing instead! lol!) J
Related postsCommentsJoan said: Thanks Jackie ...it is often the simplest tips and ways of doing things that we miss somehow! I like Grouping my layers better now though, because you can ungroup them if you need to. Especially helpful with my multiple layers in my digital watercolour technique.
Tuesday, January 19th
Mossyhairundys said: Hi I'm new to the program and I'm not sure how I should go about with the layers cause it's always locked. For example, I want to lower the opacity of the background/canvas layer to trace over it in a new layer, I cannot as it's always locked. I would really appreciate it if you could tell me on how to go about it. I tried selecting the background/canvas layer with Crtl+A and copying it and using Crtl+V to paste on the new layer(1) it always end up creating a new layer by itself even though I selected layer 1. Thanks.
Wednesday, February 16th
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Jackie Jacobson said:
Joan, this is such a very good post. I too have never collapsed layers, and now I actually see the advantage. Those crashes are killers. Your willingness to share, as you learn, is very much appreciated.