Does anyone know how to flatten multiple layers that have effects like overlay, soft light, etc without flattening the image? This has been driving me insane lately, I have dozens of layers in a project I'm working on right now that have varying layer effects and every time I want to flatten a selection of layers it removes the effects. Thanks for any help!
I've dug through photoshop tutorials and haven't found any answers to this, I'm hoping this isn't some weird problem that just my copy of PS is having.
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I know you can drop a layer or flatten the whole thing but as I recall, you may lose the effects. I hope this is not true and that you can find out how to do it. Have you looked online for tutorial sites?
mostyn
Thanks for the suggestion, I've tried a variety of techniques that haven't worked. I tried grouping the layers into a separate folder in the layer menu and flattening them from there which reverts the layer effects. I've tried dropping a layer with no effects over another with an effect which reverts it. I've tried hiding all layers in the layer menu except those I wanted to flatten and just chose "merge visible" but that reverts the effects as well.
I've looked around and have found a surprisingly small amount of photoshop boards. Those that I have found have very little traffic and I suspect any answer won't come for another week or so. I'm working around a deadline of a few weeks from now so I want to figure this out as soon as possible. I can work around it but it really makes working on an image with dozens of unnecessary layers in the layer menu a pain in the ass. For now I'm just separating the layers I want to flatten into folders in the layer menu which at least puts them out of the way.
It's strange, this should be a very simple task and I'm having the hardest time getting this figured out!
I know, when I went from using freehand to illustrator I was very annoyed that you couldn't "paste inside". SOme simple things are such a pain. Best of luck
Aeron, I'm not sure I have a solution to your problem but I've had the same trouble and I think that what causes it is if the lowest layer you're trying to flatten to is also set to a setting other than "normal" i.e. is opaque in some way. Photoshop when flattening layers with differing settings, Photoshop always creates a "normal" final layer so some of the effects you're trying to achieve are necessarily lost.
The remedy I can suggest is: you turn off the layers you're going to flatten, shift-copy everything else and paste the clone underneath those layers. Then make them visible again and flatten them onto that new cloned layer. You might have to delete areas you do not need in the end but I think that could do the trick.
Let me know if this was of any help...
Edit 1: "... is TRANSLUCENT in some way..."
Edit 2: Keep in mind to select all before shift-copying.
Here's one thing you can try but I'm not sure if its exactly what you're looking for. Select the whole image. Then Edit>Copy Merged and you can paste that as a new layer. Just try it. You can also try selecting multiple layers in your layers palette and flatten them all together.
I hope one of these helps.
Thanks for the tips, everyone. Fufu, I gave up and just flattened the image so I'll have to test that out later. I'll let you know if I have any success.
Actually jackhook's advice is pretty much identical to mine, only his version is quicker.
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