Displaying the contents of layers

You can use the Layers palette to selectively hide and display the contents of layers, layer sets, and layer effects. You can also specify how transparent areas are displayed in the image.

To change the visibility of a layer, layer set, or layer effect:

Do one of the following:

• In the Layers palette, click the eye icon next to a layer, layer set, or layer effect to hide its content in the document window. Click in the column again to redisplay the content.
• Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) an eye icon to display only the content for that layer or layer set. Alt/Option-click in the eye column again to redisplay all content.
• Drag through the eye column to change the visibility of multiple items in the Layers palette.

Note: Only visible layers are printed.

To change the display of transparency:

1. Do one of the following:
• (Photoshop) In Windows and Mac OS 9.x, choose Edit > Preferences > Transparency & Gamut; in Mac OS X, choose Photoshop > Preferences > Transparency & Gamut.
• (ImageReady) In Windows and Mac OS 9.x, choose Edit > Preference > Transparency; in Mac OS X, choose ImageReady > Preferences > Transparency.
2. Choose a size and color for the transparency checkerboard, or choose None for Grid Size to hide the transparency checkerboard.
3. (Photoshop) Select Use Video Alpha to enable Photoshop to send transparency information to your computer's video board. This option requires hardware support--make sure that your computer's video board allows images to be overlaid on top of a live video signal.
4. Click OK.