Table of Contents

Color adjustments and effects layers

Color adjustments and effects layers are separate layers you can create if you'd like to change the appearance of all the layers below them. Color adjustments layers let you change the color , lightness, and contrast of an image, while effects layers, let you create various artistic effects. Instead of affecting a single layer or a layer group like the regular Color Adjustments and Effects tools do, color adjustments and effects layers affect all the elements of a composition that are placed below them. And just like the regular color adjustments, color adjustments and effects layers offer a completely nondestructive editing experience.

Since color adjustments and effects layers can be added as separate elements of a composition, you can also edit them separately from the layer (or layers) to which they are applied — you can mask, hide, rename, rearrange them, and more. This makes different editing workflows — like selectively adjusting the specific parts of images — much more convenient.

Note: If you turn on layer descriptions in the Layers sidebar, you can see which edits a particular effects or adjustments layer has applied. See Interface overview to learn how to turn on layer descriptions.

Add a color adjustments or effects layer

Do any of the following:

Choose Insert > Color Adjustments or Insert > Effects (from the Insert menu at the top of your screen).
Click the Add at the top of the Color Adjustments or Effects pane.
Click the Insert Layer at the top of the Layers sidebar and choose Color Adjustments or Effects.
Press Shift ⇧ + Command ⌘ + A on your keyboard to add a color adjustments layer or Shift ⇧ + Command ⌘ + F to add an effects layer.

Tip: If you'd like to apply color adjustments or effects layer to only one layer below it, you can do that using a clipping mask. Alternatively, you can press and hold Option ⌥ when clicking at the top of the Color Adjustments or Effects pane to create a new color adjustments or effects layer as a clipping mask.