new layer icons wrong colour

[trevorc]

Can someone explain to me why, when I am closely following a tutorial, I get to a bit which says open a new pixel layer, my icon is transparent while the tutorials is black.  This happens regularly to me when creating new layers.  On a very similar example, a tutorial, I get to a bit where it says erase something and underneath is a white background while mine is transparent.

[GarryP]

Without knowing more about what is happening I would guess that your document has a transparent background whereas the one the tutor is using hasn’t. Try looking in the Document Setup dialog.
If that’s not what is happening then a full-screen screen-shot would be useful so we can see what you can see (and a link to the tutorial too).

[trevorc]

Thanks, there is a tick against transparent background in the document menu which presumably is on for every picture I open.  I shall turn it off unless anyone can tell me the reason why it needs to be on.  One more question please , can I change the icon to black or do I need to go back and start again.  Thanks again for pointing me at the solution very quaickly.

[GarryP]

You would tick the Transparent Background option if you needed a transparent background. Whether you need one depends on what you are doing but there’s no general reason, it depends on the circumstances.
What do you mean by “change the icon to black”? If by “icon” you mean the thumbnail to the left of the layer name in the Layers Panel then that should show what the layer looks like. If the layer is black then the thumbnail will show as black. If you have the Dark UI set to ON in Preferences then the thumbnail will look ‘black-ish’ if the layer doesn’t show up well against a dark background. Or do you mean something else?
If you told us which tutorial you were following then we could better advise, but just saying “a tutorial” doesn’t give us much to work with.

[lepr]

21 hours ago, trevorc said:

Can someone explain to me why, when I am closely following a tutorial, I get to a bit which says open a new pixel layer, my icon is transparent while the tutorials is black.

The thumbnail checkerboard background is optional. At top right corner of Layers menu, click the hamburger menu to access the Checkerboard Background toggle for thumbnails.