Hi all,

I have recently told myself that I really want to learn about layers in Photoshop. After reading a post from Dylan yesterday I had an interesting session adjusting the sky without effecting the foreground and then vice versa. Only problem, is the end result had a massive while line along the horizon, a clear line of separation from sky and foreground.

I've looked at a heap of tutorials, even a really "basic" one here by Kym but I just don't "get it," still. Steps seem to continuously get taken for granted, leaving me thinking how on earth did all that just happen? lol. I know I must just be really dumb for this not to click, when everyone else seems to use it as an essential of post processing. But is there a tutorial out there which just covers the extreme basics of layers?

All I really want to be able to do - on seascape shots only at the moment - is adjust the sky and foreground separately, and merge the two together naturally, without a big line across the photo? Is this as hard as it seems to me?

And the technique I was using was to use two big rectangles to play with sky first and then another rectangle layer foreground. Only problem here was if I darkened the sky, a headland, or top of a rock, for instance, in the distance would be blackened too. Is it easy to create non-straight layers to cater for rocks etc? Or is this just an invite to create haloing?

Anyway, these are all probably really stupid questions, but if someone could point me to the most basic of basic intro to layers I'd be most appreciative.