10.4. Applying Worry-Free Fill and Adjustment Layers

A Fill or Adjustment layer can adjust the color, levels, or brightness and contrast of your image. These changes are added as a separate layer placed in the layer hierarchy directly over the selected layer. They are portable and editable. You can create layer masks for each one. You can use Blending modes to change the way they affect other layers, and because they are full layers, you can turn them into Smart Objects.

The best thing about a Fill or Adjustment layer is that it does not change the pixels of your original image. This is the best of non-destructive editing. All the options available for Fill or Adjustment layers can be applied directly to an image file by selecting Image Adjustments. These adjustments are made directly to the image, however, and are not non-destructive.