Any new ideas or suggestions for flattening layer effects without changing appearance

Question

Hello all,
I've been doing a lot of looking around for ideas on how to make my work flow more simple. I regularly run into an issue with layer effects when they are flattened and have been unable to find any good solutions but was wondering if any new developments have come up with the newer versions of Photoshop that I am somehow overlooking?
My main issue is that when I flatten layers in sections or groups (i.e. flatten only 2 or more layers together in a larger composition but not the entire compostion), layer effects with blending modes often flatten strangely. I particularly notice this with drop shadows as I often use a color other than black, usually a very dark shade of the color that is applied to the element the shadow is overlapping. To me it gives it a much more realistic and natural look. When I flatten a layer I notice that it appears the multiply mode is stripped from drop shadow FX unless they are flattened with the nackground element, so if I used a dark blue for example, once flattened the shadow is now a distinct blue shade that appears to be in normal blending mode. I can set that drop shadow layer to multiply to restore it but then I have to keep the drop shadow element on it's own layer seperate from the body of the other flattened content otherwise it inherits the multipoy mode as well of course, which still leaves me with an unwanted layer to deal with.
My curreny solutions range from hiding all other layers and merging visible, which works from some things but not the aforementioned drop shadow issue, I will also keep things that just don't co-operate on their own seperate layer, like the drop shadow and just leave them be if I can. In cases where that isn't an option I will even hide all other layers and comp the portion of the PSD  that needs flattened to a seperate TIFF or PNG and import back into the PSD. Sometimes this will work around the issue and make everything interact as desired. It's a lenghty affair though that involves mental acrobatics every time to devise a suitable workaround that I can use for my purposes.
The reason I need to do this often is because I work for a web development company as the designer. Once the design is done sometimes I will do the slicing and prepping for web (not an issue when I do this because I can leave everything as a PSD). When other team members like the web developer need access to the graphics files though, they use Fireworks which means I need a layered PNG so they can slice as needed with the software they are familiar with while maintining transparency where needed.
I know some will say just to use Fireworks then but that isn't a desireable solution to me because I find Fireworks very limiting on the advanced Fx and graphic manipulation. I agree that Fireworks can be very capable and can do very nice things when you're thinking of the design of the entire site in general, but it usually can't do the advanced fx and manipulation I like to use for the "eye candy" portions of the site, especially when you are using mutiple Fx on a layer with their own blending modes. I find it more of a hassle to build a general site in Fireworks and import elements from Phoroshop. Keeping track of proper sizing and constantly loading placeholder background images to photoshop for reference isn't for me!
I have a pretty decent understanding of how the layer flattening works and how the blending modes function (like the fact you can't have mutiple blending modes on a single layer, thus many of the issues with layer Fx blending modes). I am using CS5.5 Design premium and am hoping there have been some advances in working with this type of thing. I know that if I could flatten the drop shadow layer with the layer it overlaps that would solve the issue nicely but this is seldom possible on websites where you have fluid areas that need to change size and the image element with the drop shadow may not always be in the same place on the site background.
It would be awesome if, since you have the ability to apply blending modes to individual layer effects, if Photoshop could have a setting to somehow flatten the layer effects and layer in it's own self containted process and then place the flattened layer within the the PSD as if you imported a transparent image like a TIFF or PNG. This is basically what I do on the extreme side of tihngs manually when needed. It would be great if there was a way to automate that type of functionality.
Does anyone know of any new or good method to deal with this type of thing? Sorry about the long post, I was trying to be as detailed as possible as I know it's sometimes easy to misunderstand what someone is asking with this type of question. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read/respond!

Answer 1

Hi Noel,
Thanks for the reply. The reason I need to do things this way is because of the workflow at my company. I need to be able to convert my photoshop PSD files in Fireworks and have the layers behave predictably. Trying to open a PSD file as is in Fireworks, while keeping the layer flexibility intact usually creates all kinds of chaos, ranging from Fireworks flat out ignoring some layer effects to drastically changing them. I assume because Fireworks way of intrepreting some setting numerically is different than Photoshop and because Fireworks doesn't even have some of the effect properties at all.
The web developers need to have layered PNG files so they can slice re-slice and move elements around as needed white they develop a website. They need to maintain transparency on the seperate elements of the website mockup so that they can reuse and move elements around as needed. At times I end up doing the CSS layout on a site and in those cases it doesn't matter becuase I can work straight from the PSD and export elements straight to PNG files etc as needed. It's when I need to provide the development team with a Fireworks PNG version of the website mockup that I have these issues.
For example and to clarify, I may have a website interface designed that has several fancy buttons or a header element with drop shadows on them or that overlap a background element in some way. If I am doing the coding on the site I can simply hide all other layers than the releveant ones, flatten visible to maintain transparency, save for web etc and I have the element complete with a nice drop shadow ready to drop into the code. If the developers are doing the slicing and layout though, they don't know how to use Photoshop (and aren't going to be learning anytime soon) but they do use Fireworks... so they want the site in fireworks, complete with the ability to hide background elements or other parts of the site that may be in the way of making the proper PNG for that button or other element that maintains transparency AND keeps the drop shadow, the proper color and transparency as well.
What typically happens if I don't flatten each element of the site design before importing into Fireworks is that it will look very different in Fireworks, but being web developers (lol!) they don't notice or maybe even care that something looks weird or appears to be missing a shadow or other effect. Then once the site goes live, the client DOES notice it and I end up scrambling to fix the issue. That usually means going back to the PSD in a rush and trying to flatten all the elements anyway to convert to a nice Fireworks PNG so they can recapture their slices, or taking the slice they used on the website and pasting it into the PSD original so I can make a direct match and converting the element myself after the fact.
In order to avoid these work flow issues and embarrassments I have taken to flattening each individual element (i.e. a button and all of it's effects) of website GUI to ensure Fireworks can't fiddle with it on import. I can then give the web developers a PNG they can slice easily but with all the important elements still completely seperate from one another. If they hide the layer that is the shopping cart button for example, they are going to be hiding the button and it's drop shadow or glow or any other effects. That way it can't be messed up by Fireworks or a developer. With buttons in particular I can't just include a portion of the background where the drop shadow would be becuase that button could end up anywhere on the site in the end. One of the features our business offers clients is a fair amount of flexibility on the CMS side of things to move elements around and create new sections of the site so I need to keep most elements as felxible as possible, preferrably without giving up quality of the artwork.
I feel like I have a fairly solid understanding of why the layer effects act the way they do and how they interact, even if I don't understand fully the math that makes them do what they do. I guess I was hoping that the increasing power in the CS suites, especially in 5 and 5.5 might have made some new work around possible, or that they might have added some feature buried in the menus somewhere because it's not that practicle for many users. I have several ways to work around these issues now, but they are manual and cumbersome, I was hoping there might have been an action script or feature to automate some of this.
I think a really cool thing to be able to do would be to be able to select some layers and have Photoshop copy them and paste them into a new document with their layer styles and all intact, flatten that document with transparency intact and then put the new flattened file back into the original document in the same location on the artboard as a new layer. This is essentially what I do when I hide all the other layers, merge visible and save as a TIFF or PNG and then copy that new file back into my full PSD document. I still experience some color shifting this way but usually not as drastic as when I try to merge directly in the full PSD. OR if that can't work, even better would be to somehow have the effects be able to "float" with the actual photoshop layer, almost like sub layers of that layer, so that each one could have it's own blending mode (and individual masks for each... that would be awesome!) and you could flatten them together somehow when needed and maintain color tones etc. Don't know if this could work though since I don't know what the limitations of the math process that combines the layers are. I would imagine some of it it would be possible, if not worth their time, since smart objects open in their own document window when you edit. I would imagine that some code work on the back end might be able to be applied using a similar method to give extra flexbility of some layer effects in Photoshop. I would love it, I know that!
Hopefully there is at least as faster way if not an ideal work around. It defintely adds to the development cycle of a website to have to go through this step. It's also at a point in the development cycle where the site has been approved and there can be added pressure about why they development team still has to wait on a design that has already been OK'd and should be ready to slice. I have gained understanding with my boss about this and it's worked out OK for the most part, but it would certainly make him happier if I could eliminate that extra step, or reduce the time needed. On a complicated website I might lose half a day of work or more sorting out the various site elements and figuring out how much I can flatten and how and what order to break effects off their layers to maintain appearance. I have tried Fireworks several times as a native solution, but ultimately I feel very restricted by Fireworks and often can't do what I had in mind, although it has gotten better. Also on a psychological level, Fireworks "working with basic shapes" method of desigining a website tends to steer me down that mental path for some reason and I always end up with sites that look much less fluid and organi, much more boxy than when I design in Photoshop. One of our companies selling points is that we design sites that break away from the boxy and simpler web 2.0 look so Fireworks is not really a consideration for me at this point. Thanks again for the help and any respones!