Inexperienced photographers often ignore Photoshop’s transformative layering capabilities because they think these powerful tools are too difficult for their rudimentary skills. We going to correct this misconception in the next four minutes with the following tutorial from Photoshop Café.

Instructor Colin Smith is an Adobe expert, adept photographer, workshop leader, and prolific author whose popular YouTube channel has 400K subscribers and over a thousand instructional videos. He kick’s off today’s quick episode like this: “These Photoshop layer tips are so quick and immensely useful that you’ll use them all the time.”

Trick #1 helps you determine if a layer is empty, “because sometimes there’s a small little piece in there that’s difficult to see.” All you have to do is select the layer in question, use the appropriate keyboard shortcut, and Photoshop loads the selection. Then grab a brush and see if you can paint over this area. If so, this means the layer is completely empty.

Next on the list is a quick tip when you want to quickly duplicate a layer while staying on the canvas and not taking time to switch to Photoshop’s Layer panel. First use the aforementioned keyboard shortcut to select the layer, and then employ another shortcut to instantly copy the layer.

There are also times when you want to take a group of layers and apply them to a brand-new document. Tip #3 demonstrates how to handle this task by selecting the background, right-click to choose the New Group from Layers option and click on Duplicate Group. Then give it a name, select New and you’re done.

At this point there are three remaining layering tricks you’ll want to learn, and they’re just as easy and effective as those mentioned above. Once you’re done be sure to add these helpful techniques to your everyday Lightroom workflow.

We encourage you to visit the Photoshop Café YouTube channel where you’ll find many more Lightroom and Photoshop tips and techniques.

And on a related note, don’t miss a tutorial we featured recently with another post-processing expert who demonstrates three powerful Lightroom masking techniques that provide total over details and deliver photographs with a unique flair.

Some say flowers herald the coming of spring, but I feel it is the song of the Red-winged Blackbird that signifies the change of seasons. I still remember their beautiful call one very cold morning near the end of winter, before the growth of any plant or the disappearance of ice.