Roberto Blake Illustration Non Destuctive Editing Poster

The concept of Non Destructive Editing, was something that was introduced to much later as a Graphic Designer. I can’t tell you how many times in my design career I wish it hadn’t been. I will never get back all those hours I foolishly used the erase tool, or how I used to keep 50 undo states in my preferences. Some people have the mistaken impression that Non Destructive editing is simply using layer stacks properly, but its so much more than that! Photoshop has come a long way in how it allows you to preseve the natural integrity of your images.

Layer Mask.
Even seasoned Graphic Designers and Digital Artist haven’t completely explored this tool and its usefulness sometimes. Personally I feel “Layer Masking is a Godsend!”  The Layer Mask tool is the third icon from the left in your Layers Panel. The Layer Mask lets you reveal and conceal parts of an image layer without Destroying, the original image. If you change your mind you can simply paint the pixels back in. In Layer masking you use a White Brush to reveal pixels, and  Black Brush to conceal them. You can even mask entire Layer Groups if you want to. When you combine this with custom brushes, blend modes, feathering, selection tools, and so on the array of effects you can get is amazing.

A great example of how Layer Mask can be used in Non Destructive Editing can be found in my tutorial Retouching Like A PRO 101

Adjustment Layers.
One of the greatest developments in the newer versions of Adobe Photoshop has to be Adjustment Layers. With this you can use most of the tools from your Image Adjustment menu, as their own layers. Black and White Conversions, Curves, Levels, Brightness and Contrast, and several others can be applied to get those rich effects you need, while still being easily undone if they don’t work out. This is a great way to handle Non Destructive Editing for retouching photos, or doing Photo-manipulations.

Smart Objects.
Another great but recent advancement in Photoshop, Smart Objects. Smart Objects let us preserve images and text, even whole art other PSD or AI files we want to bring into our composition, and the best part is, if you edit the original file that is linked via a Smart Object, a logo for example, it will update in the PDS file with out you having to start over. In the case of vector images brought over from Illustrator you can also scale them without any quality issues, this is especially useful whe working with type.