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. Doing this will enable Photoshop to remember the visibility states of all layers before hiding them. Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) in the eye column again to restore the original visibility settings.
• 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 way transparency is displayed:

1. Do one of the following:
• (Photoshop) In Windows, choose Edit > Preferences > Transparency & Gamut; in Mac OS, choose Photoshop > Preferences > Transparency & Gamut.
• (ImageReady) In Windows, choose Edit > Preference > Transparency; in Mac OS, 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.