Opacity Vs Fill When Using Layers In Adobe Photoshop

Layers are an incredibly useful tool in Photoshop (we've actually got a great tutorial on how you can make the most of them should you want to peruse it) and when you dig down into the tools, you'll find the opacity and fill options.

Opacity Vs Fill

Both are really useful tools but a common question is, what is the difference between the two? To answer this, and to show you how best to use each tool, The School of Photography have put the above video tutorial together which demonstrates how the opacity and fill tools can be used when working with text and photos. You can also see a more in-depth tutorial over on their website should you prefer to read rather than watch when learning. 

Where Are These Tools?

You find the opacity and fill options in the layers panel in Photoshop and the opacity tool will change the transparency of everything on the layer you have selected while fill will change the transparency of whatever is filling the layer but will ignore any effects that have been applied to it.

Better Landscape Images 

Knowing how to use these tools can help you improve your landscape shots, as The School of Photography explains at around 05:38 in the video tutorial so do pay attention at this point if this is of particular interest to you. The other important timestamps in the tutorial include explaining what opacity and fill options are (00:15) and applying both effects to text (01:51).