November 10th, 2009 by Jeff Hipp

Helpful Photoshop Layer Organization

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About this post:

Senior designer, Jeffry Hipp, describes his useful techniques for organizing a Photoshop file.

Filed under Creativity, Tips, Tricks & Hints

 

As a designer I'm a visual person (obvious), and this applies to how I plan my layer structure in Photoshop.  "Layer structure" - what?  Yeah, have I mentioned that I can also be a bit anal when it comes to details of building and creating a design?

example showing layer and folder naming

 

example showing layers associated with layout position.

I believe this originates from when I was an intern at a design shop in Atlanta (that will remain unnamed).  Not being the sole owner of a project, you'd be given one that had already been started and tasked with continuing that concept.  This usually meant that the files were a complete mess due to the original frantic creativity of brainstorming & conveying the ideas.  The first thing you had to do was sit there and figure out how the project was built - often with umpteen hundreds of unlabeled layers.

 

Anyways, this helped me develop a simple system for Photoshop layer structure that allowed one to quickly find an item buried in the layers.  This system also made a file easier for any other co-designer or in-house freelancer to take and be able to figure out how it was built and quickly continue designing.

 

First of all - Name your layers and folders appropriately.  

What?  You have no clue what "Layer 127 copy" is?  Neither does anyone else.  It takes two seconds, and will save a lot of time later.  The user will be able to scan visually down the layers for the key word, or when using the Move Tool and Mouse Right Click to find the desired layer - the name will show without much guess-work.

 

Secondly - Layer order is important.

I structure my layers so that they reflect the position of that item physically on the layout.  Layers top in the list are items in the top left area of the layout.  Layers low in the list are items in the bottom right area of the layout.  Basically starting left to right and top to bottom.  There are ALWAYS exceptions to this rule, for example when certain layers must live above another layer for a desired affect.  Background colors and pattern layers are placed into a folder at the bottom of the list.

 

Third - Create layer folders to organize groups of layer types.  

Examples; Header, Global Navigation, Side Column, Main Content, Lower Content, Callout, Footer, and Backgrounds.

 

 

You should always assume that you WILL NOT be the only person needing to access the file for future edits or updates.  

 

This is true and I have seen it happen many times!  For example if you go on vacation and the client calls frantic with an emergency change, if you are unexpectedly out ill for a day or so, or if you are pulled into another new project and need to pass the remainder of this Photoshop file along to an intern to finish.

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