Open a new image canvas, any size you want, but make it with a "raster background" and make the background "transparent".

If you don't see your layer palatte, go to View, then Palettes, and click on Layers. That should open your Layers palette. It looks like this in PSP 8.

layers palette Notice that the layer you are on is highlighted in blue. You are on layer 1 because there is only one layer open at his time. But that will change as you add layers.

Notice the pink arrow that I drew. That is pointing to the icon/symbol that you will click on to create a new Raster Layer.
Click on that icon now. A box will appear. See next image.

This is the box that appears when you have clicked the icon above. Notice that the name of the new layer
is Raster 2. If you want to, you can rename it something else. But for this tut, I just left it named Raster 2. Leave all the other settings as I have them here. These are the default settings. Now click OK and a new layer will be created. This box will disappear.

layer palette 2 Your layer palette should now be showing a second layer. If you want to draw on the first layer, you have to click on that layer in this palette so that it is highlighted. In the case of the image to the left here, you would be drawing on the second layer. If you want to draw on the first layer instead, you must click on layer 1 and then draw.

Position of the following layers.

The position of the next layers depends on which layer you have highlighted. Whichever layer you have highlighted, the new next layer will be directly above it. So in the example above, with layer 2 highlighted, the next layer would automatically go above it and then your layer palette would lool like this:
layer palette with 3 layers

But if you highlight layer 1 and then create a new layer, layer 3 will appear between layer 1 and layer 2. See below:
layer last example Now, go practice making and drawing on layers.

How to turn a layer off

There will be times you want to turn a layer off. Here is what you do.
turning off See the eye that they pink arrow is pointing at? Click on that eye and a red X will appear over the eye.
Red X Now you will not be able to see anything that is on layer 3.

Now, go practice making and drawing on layers.