How to use Adobe Illustrator merge layers

What makes digital design and illustration so fascinating? Digital illustration enables artists and designers to create stunning visual effects in images that can be used and shared on many platforms.

One of the ways to create eye-catching visual effects is to layer components in an artwork to make the foreground, middle ground, and background. Layering is an important feature that must be added to any professional design and illustration software.

Illustrator Layers are perfect for designers creating complex artwork. They enable you to easily control a hierarchy of individual visual elements that can appear above or below each other in your digital design.

You can also choose to combine layers and place an arrangement of vector graphics on a single layer. The benefit of using image layers is that you can group or isolate certain parts of a design to preserve its layout while editing other parts of the design or illustration.

For example, you can use layers to group all elements with the same fill color to make it easier to change the color if needed. You can also keep your initial sketches on an invisible layer and use them for reference when needed.

Layers also allow you to experiment and find better options because you can toggle Layer visibility on or off and show certain designs together. Managing your design's layers well also means better collaboration with teams and customers by making design files more straightforward to read and work on.

In essence, image layers make your life as an illustrator and designer easier, giving you more freedom to draw (and make mistakes) with full control over what is shown or hidden.

This article will show you how to organize your creative process and merge selected layers in Adobe Illustrator.

About Adobe software

Adobe is a giant in the graphic design industry and one of the top 10 software brands in the world, valued at about $80 billion. If you're a designer, you've heard of this software company, even if you don't use any of its products.

The Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) is the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) version of the popular design suite, featuring the well-known digital design products Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more. These products suit complex artwork, layouts, and advanced design work.

Adobe Illustrator, the product we’ll be focusing on today, is a graphic design software that illustrators and designers can use to create original content with advanced tools and, most importantly, artwork layers.

One of Adobe's significant features is its Layers. Adobe Illustrator Layers are helpful for many things when designing. Still, you might sometimes want to cut down on the number of layers used in a piece to keep your Illustrator document organized and avoid confusion with layer groups.

In this article, we’ll discuss how layers work, how to merge layers in Adobe, and how to recreate the same effect with Linearity Curve (formerly Vectornator) layers.

What are Illustrator layers?

When illustrators and designers work on big projects, it can be hard to keep track of everything going on in the design document. It can be even harder to select a single object to change or move when you don't have control over all the visible items on your artboards.

That's where separate layers come in.

Layers are a great way to manage each aspect of an artwork in Illustrator. They enable you to create an arrangement hierarchy with separate objects, move artwork between layers, and choose to work only on unlocked or visible layers. This means individual layers can be selected and adjusted without searching for the item within your design.

Layers can be as simple or complicated as you make them. Adobe organizes your design objects into a parent layer by default. In other words, it lets you design on one active layer. However, you can add more layers using the Layers Panel menu and move objects between layers in Illustrator to create a hierarchy.

This enables you to isolate and name certain design parts in the Layers menu, making it easier to select and edit various elements together without accidentally selecting parts that you want to keep the same. You can do this by locking the layers that contain the elements that mustn't be changed.

As mentioned earlier in this article, one of the ways to use Layers to isolate elements in your artwork is to place items with the same fill color together on one layer. In Illustrator, you can do this by first selecting one of the elements with the fill color you want to target, then navigating to Select > Same > Fill Color in the main menu.

Once all the elements of the same color are selected, you can click on the Layer in the Layers Panel and then choose Object > Arrange > Send To Current Layer.

You repeat these steps for other fill colors in your artwork. Placing objects with the same fill color together on the same layer enables you to select same-color elements easily, change their hue in the design, and toggle these elements on and off using Layer Visibility.

Adobe's Layers Panel gives you control over layer tools with their selection tool and the ability to hide, lock, and change the appearance attributes of layers. You can also create locked template layers that can be dimmed to trace the artwork on that layer.

Most of Adobe's design tools, such as Adobe Photoshop, offer a layers feature. Photoshop has a background layer, which is the base of the image you're working on. You can convert Background into Layer 0 to use alpha channel and other image masking techniques in your design file.

Each new layer you create will be Layer 1, 2, 3, etc., and you can rename them to make navigating easier. It’s essential to name your layers so that you can quickly identify the sections you want to work on, and this is true for any design software you’ll use.

But, back to Illustrator layers – when would you need to merge them, and how do you do it? Let’s check it out.

When to use merge layers

Layers help designers control elements in their Illustrator designs, but when should you consider merging them? There are a few reasons we can think of.

First, having fewer layers in a working document is more convenient. While it's nice to have layers to organize your design elements, sometimes it can be a cumbersome process to have too many because it makes it difficult to navigate your design file.

This is when merging layers into a single layer can be helpful. Second, you may want to send a working document to a client or coworker without the mess of having tons of layers that they need to work with.

You may also want to flatten artwork in your Illustrator file, combining all layers into one compound shape. A flattened image in Illustrator is easier to handle if you want to use it in other designs as well.

Whatever your reason for wanting to learn to merge layers that led you to this article, we're ready to jump in and explain how you can do just that.

Get started for free

Get started for free

How to use merge layers

Here's our step-by-step merge layers tutorial for Illustrator. It’s pretty simple and can be done in just a few easy steps!

1. Open up the Adobe Illustrator file (.AI) in which you need to merge layers.

2. Select Window, then Layers, and go into the Layers Panel menu (a hamburger-style menu icon in the top-right corner of the Layers Panel).

3. You'll see a menu of all current layers in your document. Each layer will be colored differently. Note: you can change the names of these layers in the Layers menu by double-clicking on the layer's name, typing the new name, and then pressing Enter on your keyboard.

4. Select the layers you wish to merge. You must select at least two. To select multiple layers, hold down Shift (sequence of layers) or Cmd/Ctrl (multi-select) on your keyboard while clicking on layers. Fun fact: Layers don't need to be visible to merge.

5. Once you've selected your layers, click on Layer Panel Options and choose Merge Selected.

And that's it! You've officially merged several layers into a single layer on Adobe Illustrator. You can repeat this process as many times as you need.

Merge layers by flattening image

As mentioned earlier, another easy way to merge layers is to flatten your entire layer structure.

1. In your Layers Panel, where you can see the list of layers, click on the Layers Panel menu. You don't have to pre-select any layers for this step.

2. Choose the option Flatten Artwork. All your layers will be combined into a single layer.

Now that you have everything you need in one individual layer, your document will be easier to navigate and more straightforward for teammates and collaborators to understand.

In Illustrator, one thing to note is that you can only undo changes you've recently made. So, you won't be able to undo this layer merge if you make any changes afterward. We recommend saving an ‘open’ version (with all its layers) of your file and a flattened version to ensure you can access your original layers if needed.

Adobe Illustrator is a great design program, but it can take many hours to learn, and it isn't affordable. There are other excellent design applications that are easier to use and offered for free, such as Curve.

How to use layers in Linearity Curve

Curve is a graphic design tool similar to Illustrator, including layers tools and advanced features for design.

If you want to create a document with multiple layers but you're looking for an alternative to Adobe Illustrator, Curve can be the perfect solution. We have tons of features that make working with image layers easy.

When you create a design in Curve, any Path, Shape, or Group you make will automatically be stored within a Layer.

You can work with Layers on our iPad, Mac, or desktop. In this tutorial, we’ll focus on the iPad.

Create and edit layers in Linearity Curve

To create or change layers in Curve, start with the Layers Tab in the Inspector. In the Layers Tab, you can access, create, and organize all your Layers and Artboards much like you would in Adobe Illustrator.

You can edit Layers by tapping the Edit button at the top of the Layer Tab. You'll then be able to Delete, Duplicate, Export, Hide, and Lock your Layers.

You can also rename Layers in Curve to improve your Layer organization. When you create Layers, they're given a default name. To change this, tap on a Layer’s name and type in your desired title.

Show or hide layers in Linearity Curve

You can use the Hide/Show icon to change the visibility of your selected Layer’s elements on the canvas.

Select layers in Linearity Curve

To select Layers, you can swipe from left to right, then repeat this action on any additional Layer you want to select.

Moving elements into layers in Linearity Curve

Moving elements can be done easily by dragging an element from its existing Layer to another.

To do this, you can tap and hold an element in the Layers panel and then drag it to the Layer you want to move it to. The Layer will turn blue once you drag the element to it, and then you can drop it into the Layer by lifting your finger or Apple Pencil off the screen.

You can tap the arrow on the left of the Layer name to open the Layer and see all the elements within.

How to change layer opacity in Linearity Curve

Another cool thing about using Layers is that you can change the opacity of an entire group of elements within your design. Tap on the Layer and enter a percentage for the opacity to make the elements on that Layer more transparent.

How to merge layers in Linearity Curve

To merge layers in Curve, select two or more layers and follow one of the two options below:

Option 1: drag and drop

There are three ways to merge layers with the drag and drop technique:

1. Drag and drop one layer on top of another layer: Select and drag & drop a Parent Layer on top of another layer.
2. Drag and drop a layer inside an open layer: Select a layer and then drag & drop it directly between the elements of an open layer.
3. Drop a Parent layer into a group: Select a layer and then drag & drop it directly into a group.

Option 2: menu option

Long press on one of the Layers in your Layer selection until the Context Menu appears, then tap the Merge Layers option. The long-pressed Layer will be the destination Layer once the merge has been completed.

As you can see, working with Layers in Curve is super simple. To learn more and get detailed steps, check out the page on Layers in our Learning Hub.

Give it a try

We've shown you the value of using image layers in design files to have more control over groups of elements in your artwork and how to organize your design files using Adobe Illustrator's Layers feature.

We also showed you how to do all these steps and more with Curve using an iPad. You can merge layers in more than one way and use other methods to keep the visual elements in your design files organized and easy to work with.

Not only is Curve a strong Illustrator alternative, but its intuitive interface also makes it the ideal software for digital artists and illustrators looking for vector software that feels as natural as pencil and paper.

By taking advantage of all the gestures you can make with your hand on an iPad interface in combination with an Apple Pencil, Curve offers a comprehensive illustration tool for professionals as well as beginners. It's especially well-suited for digital illustrators who draw and paint their beautiful vector artworks on iPad.

It’s time for you to take your knowledge about working with Layers in Adobe Illustrator or Curve and use it to organize the artwork within your designs. Your clients and coworkers will thank you for sending them organized and simplified documents, and your brain will thank you for creating designs that are easier to navigate.