Layer in photo shop?

What is the purpose of creating the layers in photoshop?

It's so you don't affect the original image but make changes over it. By adding layers you add components to the image and work on them one at a time.

Creating a new layer in PS will allow you to make changes to your original image without affecting it and creating a situation where you can no longer roll back to the original. It's non destructive. Think of it as how the pre digital cartoon houses would work. Each change had a new transparent cell to work on, called an overlay. They would build up to the final image.

Same in photoshop. You can still output a final merged image but at any time you can edit the parts of an image depending upon which layer it is on. Basic would be sketch layer, inking layer, colouring layer and you can go on from there to have as many layers as your PC can handle.

Hope that helps some.