Good morning 🙂

Today a post about certain techniques in Photoshop used for unlocking layers. This may seem like an easy topic, however there are some very nice techniques I want to share with you.

To start with, Background layer is always locked by default. That’s the nature of Background layers. But today we are not talking just about background layers but about layers in general. Here is a screenshot of a typical layers structure with a locked background layer:

Any layer in Photoshop can be locked as well. It is as simple as selecting a layer and clicking the Lock icon at the top of the Layers panel:

Now, the question is “How do you unlock the layer?”

There are a number of techniques that can be used here:

• You can use the same icon you used to lock the layer, if you click on it again, this will unlock the layer.
• You can also click on the Lock icon next to the layer’s name and drag it to the bin! This is a nice one. 🙂
• You can also use “/” to  toggle between locking and unlocking the layer – another very nice trick. I learnt this one from Zeno Bokor – the credit goes to you, Zeno! 😉

Enjoy! 🙂