What is the difference between a layer and a channel in photoshop?

Actually, layers and channels are two very separate things, and used for specific and different purposes, so it's not really an issue of one versus the other.





Having a Photoshop file that contains layers lets you -- for instance -- assign different components of your file to different work areas. The biggest advantage of working in an image with layers allows you to work on one part of the image without disturbing the other parts.





Let's say you wanted to make a composite photo, using pictures of three of your friends. You could put each friend's picture on a separate layer in one Photoshop file, and be able to move the picture on each layer independently.





You could also edit each layer independently. If you wanted to make a change to one friend's hair color, or bump up the color on another friend's face, you could do those things without affecting the overall picture. When you're finished and satisfied with each layer, you could merge, or combine, the layers into one composite layer.





Channels are much different from layers. When you open a new image in Photoshop, you automatically create color information channels. The image's color mode determines the number of color channels created.





For example, an RGB image has four default channels: one for each of the red, green, and blue colors, plus a composite channel used for editing the image (that's all three channels put together). A CMYK image has five channels -- one each for cyan, magenta, yellow and black, and also a composite channel. You can edit each channel independently, or edit the color in the composite channel. So channels allow you to manipulate the color of an image.





You can also create what's known as alpha channels to store selections as grayscale images. And alpha channels can be used to create and store masks, which let you manipulate or protect specific parts of an image. An image can have up to 56 channels.





So you can see that layers and channels are two totally separate things. Long story short, layers are used for editing separate parts of an image, and compositing, and channels have to do with the color mode and color editing of an image.





Hope this helps!What is the difference between a layer and a channel in photoshop?
If you are operating in RGB - you can see and edit the individual channels that make up the composite image - Red channel, Green channel and a Blue channel. Layers on the other hand are complete composite images containing all three channels.





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