There is less new material in this tutorial. The answers are at the bottom. Some answers may not be in the textbook and will require some experimentation.

When might you want to create a composite layer?
What needs to be done before running the High Pass filter?
What blend modes are typically used with the High Pass filter?
After applying the High Pass filter, you notice that the sharpening accentuated skin pores and blemishes, increased noise in areas of uniform color, and/or made the background more distracting? What would you do to reduce the sharpening in these areas?
What is the drawback of using a composite layer for retouching and repairing in a document that contains one or more adjustment layers?
To retouch on a layer below one or more adjustment layers, what Sampling option should be used with the Clone Stamp, Spot Healing Brush, and Red Eye tools?
If your image contains one or more type layers and you want these vector layers to print crisply on a Postscript printer, what needs to be done when creating a composite layer?

Answers

When might you want to create a composite layer?

A composite or stamped layer is useful when you need to have all of the visible layers in a single layer while still retaining all of the current layers in the document. For example, you may want to copy the composite layer to another document. Or you may want use a filter to sharpen, blur, liquify, etc. the entire image, which is often impractical to do on each individual layer.
What needs to be done before running the High Pass filter?

Create a layer on which to apply the filter:
Duplicate the layer if there is only a single layer in the document
Otherwise make a composite or “stamped” layer, which produces a flattened version of your visible layers, but doesn’t discard layers. Select the top layer first so that you don’t have to drag the composite layer to the top of the layer stack. Then use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl/Command + Alt/Option + Shift + E.
Change the image zoom to between 50% and 100% to best observe the sharpening effects on the image.
What blend modes are typically used with the High Pass filter?

Overlay, Soft Light or Hard Light
After applying the High Pass filter, you notice that the sharpening accentuated skin pores and blemishes, increased noise in areas of uniform color, and/or made the background more distracting? What would you do to reduce the sharpening in these areas?

Choose the Brush tool.
Change the foreground color to 50% gray. In the Color Picker select 0% Saturation and 50% Brightness. The Hue doesn’t matter. (The textbook uses a different method to select 50% gray.)
Paint on the high pass filter layer wherever you find unwanted detail. Use a lower brush Opacity to just partially reduce the sharpening.
What is the drawback of using a composite layer for retouching and repairing in a document that contains one or more adjustment layers?

If you ever want to change one of the layers below the composite layer, such as tweaking one of the adjustment layers, the change will not be reflected in the composite layer or what you see. You lose the advantage of being able to work with those items as separate layers. Therefore, it is preferable to put retouching layers below any adjustment layers and not use a composite layer for that purpose.
To retouch on a layer below one or more adjustment layers, what Sampling option should be used with the Clone Stamp, Spot Healing Brush, and Red Eye tools?

For the Clone Stamp tool, use the Current & Below sampling option. This option ignores what the overlying adjustment layers are doing. Don't use the All Layers option since it causes your retouching to be adjusted twice – once when it samples from the adjusted source layer and again when it paints on the adjusted retouching layer.
The Spot Healing Brush doesn’t have this option, but it is not needed since Sample All Layers creates the correct blending.
The Red Eye tool can only sample from the current layer (e.g. a duplicate layer) so there is no double-adjustment problem.
If your image contains one or more type layers and you want these vector layers to print crisply on a Postscript printer, what needs to be done when creating a composite layer?

Since a composite layer is made only from visible layers, hide the type layers before creating it. Then make the type layers visible and drag them above the composite layer. (See Lesson 13, #6)