Flattening Blend Mode/Layer Effects CS4

Greetings,
Working in PS CS4 Mac 10.6
CMYK document with a simple image layer with Drop Shadow layer effect and blend mode: Overlay.
I can't get the layer to flatten! When I try to flatten, it ends up looking like the original layer without blend mode or drop shadow.
I'm using the method of creating a new empty layer above image layer and merging the two together.
Is this unique to CMYK mode? (I usually work in RGB mode.)
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

an additional layer with a stroke
Are you sure they want a stroke and not a Path?
Hard Light seems to be pretty much the opposite of Overlay, so you could try
• duplicating the background Layer,
• setting it to Hard Light,
• Clipping Masking it so the the Layer in question and
• setting that to Normal –
that should then be able to be merged.
The Drop Shadow however would of course lose its Blending Mode if it is merged to the Layer.

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Color Dodge Blend mode issue in CS4

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How to flatten without losing layer effects' "looks"

I am working on a client project involving photoshop files, each containing lots of layers and a fair amount of layer effects...things like drop shadow, glow, bevel, etc.
I am not having luck flattening these images (which I need to do) without losing the look of the original.
For example, the shadows might be there, but they aren't as dark, or the glows might not be as bright.
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DZ

Christoph,
>just to make sure: With »flatten« You do mean reduce to the background layer and not just reducing the file-complexity by merging groups or such?
That terminology
("reduce to the background layer") is not used in the English version of Photoshop. Not even
"reduce". :)
The menu item labeled "Auf die Hintergrundebene Reduzieren" (oder so was ähnliches) in German is labeled with a single word in English:
Flatten.
I know how hard it is to refer to specifics in a version in a different language when you don't have it available. It's not a question of just translating the word. "Layers" in the German version are not
layers at all but
planes (»Ebenen«, nicht »Schichten«). Took me a few seconds to figure that one out when I started out to learn Photoshop. :)
The concept of "Reducing" is not used in the English version at all. "Sichtbare Ebenen auf eine Ebene reduzieren" is simply
Merge Visible.
Usw

Luminosity and saturation blending modes in FW CS4 differ from their equivalents in PSE 7

Example:
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Luminosity in FW CS4: RGB(67,121,175)
Luminosity in PSE 7: RGB(137,190,234)
Saturation in FW CS4: RGB(60,109,158)
Saturation in PSE 7: RGB(41,119,184)
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What happens to your blended colors in PSE if you turn off the color profiles?
Fireworks is intended to produce graphics for display in Web applications, which have only recently begun to support color profiles. Even then, you don't want to use them on your page graphics (like nav buttons), because the profiles won't apply to HTML/CSS colors and you'll get mismatches.
PS is primarily intended for photographs and for printing, and so the standard workflow in PS (and I suspect also PSE) is to apply at least a default color profile. One use of color profiles is to correct the colors for printers, but profiles will also change the colors in images.
Have a read:
http://www.viget.com/inspire/save-for-web-simply
http://www.rumblingskies.com/blog/?p=46

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is there any way to render out a blend mode layer so when it's on normal it still looks like the blend mode with the transparency etc...
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Simply - no. Blend modes will only work within Photoshop files. Outside Photoshop they need to be rendered onto opaque or transparent pixels, to retain their appearance.
Its really impossible to tell with compete certainty, without a more detailed explanation. (which mode, whats it interacting with) But the answer, again in case you didnt hear it first time, is likely to be … no

How work this Blend Mode Mathematically ?

hi,
i need to know how work this Blend Mode :
Layer, Overlay, Hard light, Add, Subtract, Difference,
Invert, Alpha & Erase . Mathematically ?
Regards
Crimson

AlMostabed wrote:
> this like help u :
>
http://dunnbypaul.net/blends
>
> one more question mid-grey in RGB is (128 , 128 , 128 ).
how i know
> if the base color less or greater than mid-grey ??
>
> i know DARKER than mid grey will be less than 128 &
LIGHTER than mid
> grey will be higher than 128 but in each channels or
what ?
>
> ok, ( 129 , 239 , 129 ) is lighter than mid grey and (
127 , 101 ,
> 123 ) is darker than med grey . right ? and ( 235 , 128
, 107 ) is
> darker or lighter then mid gray ??
You need the L component of the HSL representation of your
colour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_color_space
L=0.5*(Math.min(Math.min(r, g), b)+Math.max(Math.max(r, g),
b))
where r, g, and b are the components of the colour.
Andrew

Why is a layer blending mode result altered by adding and effect?

I've done a search online and haven't come up with an answer but does anyone
know why a layers blending mode result is altered by adding an effect?
I am using CS3 on a PC (Windows XP SP2) and have two layers; one a Tiff and
a second a text layer with an ambient light and a spot shining on them. Both
layers have 3D turned on and accept lights and are in the same position in
space.
To make the text, which is coloured black, sit better I changed the layers
blend mode to soft light which works well.
I wanted to soften the edge of the text a little so I added a Fast Blur
effect and suddenly the result of the blend was completely different. If I
turn off the effect it goes back to what it was before but even if the Fast
Blur is set to zero, ie no blur on the layer, the blend result is altered.
Does anyone know what's going on?

Many thanks for that. I tried the Box Blur but it too shifted the result of the blend. In the end, to get this job out of the door, I changed the colour of the text to orange, lowered the opacity and used Multiply as the layer blend mode. Adding the Fast Blur effect to this didn't shift the result of the blend mode. It's not as sexy a look as using Soft Light but it works. I wonder if it's something going on with the maths or this a real bug? <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected].. > Presumably a bug that uses the blur's convolution kernel when it > shoulddn't. Please report at <a href=http://www.adobe.com/go/wish>. Still, > sometimes changing the blend behavior is inevitable. Even if the layers > visually look the same, the actual pixel values may change and thus create > a different result in the blend formulas. That should not be the case > here, though. Replace the Fast Blur with Box Blur set to 8 or 9 iterations > and the result should look the same, but without the blending problem, I > guess. > > Mylenium

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

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!

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!

Merging/Flattening Layers with different blending modes and maintaining the visual appearance

Hello,
I see there are many others that are having the same problem as me. And alas, it doesn't seem like the problem has been solved or very understood for that matter.
I want to be able to take a document, that has multiple layers, inside of multiple groups with various layers having various blending modes applied to them and from within that document, select simply two of those layers, one with a Divide blending mode and the other layer Normal, merge those two layers, but have the visual appearance of the merged layer maintain the visual appearance of what the layers looked like before I merged them.
Everytime I attempt this, Ps takes my Divide layer, reverts it back to Normal and then merges the layers, thus changing the appearance of what it was before the merge. This is not the desired result.
I understand that when you flatten an entire series of layers, it applies all the blending modes and maintains the visual appearance. Is there a way to do this with just two layers instead of all the layers? If so, that would be great information. If not, why not?
Thank you
Jake

Short answer: No.
A "layer" with a specific blending mode implies a sequence of math operations on a given pixel. Think of the visible pixel R, G, and B values as the result of a potentially complex math formula that combines numbers from each layer in complex ways (those ways being defined by the blending mode you've chosen). You can't always simplify particular factors of your choosing in a given math formula.
The next step is to examine why you would want to do so. Perhaps there's a more direct way to achieve your goal that would avert the need entirely.
Another possibility, if the effect of several layers together is something you'd like to manipulate as a unit, is to Group the layers.
-Noel

How do you make the layer mode take effect with no background in Elements?

I have a picture of water splashing over a black background (like this:
although this isn't the exact one). By turning the blending mode to "screen", I get the effect I want: it basically looks like the water is splashing over my image. The thing is, I need to save it as a .png file with part of the water "dripping" off the edge of my photo onto a transparent background (background must be transparent). The problem I have is as soon as the image hits the transparent background, the black comes back.
I need a way to either remove all the black from the photo or, more ideally, find a way to make the image I see in "normal" blending mode the same as the image I see in "screen" mode. Any ideas? (I have Photoshop Elements 7.0, btw)
Thanks!

I don't understand how you're using "screen" blending mode on a single image, but is this the effect you're trying to get (I used a blue colour to show the transparent area at the bottom of the image):
I used the free KillWhite plug-in (http://mikes3d.com/extra/scripting-plugins/killwhite/) with your image:
Converted the image to RGB. (Image...Mode...RGB Color)
Duplicated the background layer (Ctrl+J).
Inverted the colours on that duplicated layer (Ctrl+I), so that the black background becomes white.
Used KillWhite to...well...kill the white on that layer.
Inverted the colours again.
Used Enhance...Lighting...Brightness/Contrast as well as Levels to darken the water splash.
Added my flower image below the water splash layer and raised the bottom edge of the flower image to leave a transparent area.
My layers wound up looking like this:
Ken

CS4 bringing photoshop layered files into illustrator - blending modes

Hello.
I have a layered photoshop file that is being brought into illustrator. One layer is a drop shadow and is set to multiply within photoshop. The drop shadow is NOT an effect. It's just a plain layer of a drop shadow. When I bring it into illustrator it doesn't act as if it is set to multiply when placed over my illustrator object. I know it's easy enough to make the shadow within illustrator and set the blending mode there but I would like to know why this is not working.
Thanks in advance for the help.
-PB

Illustrator's blending math is not the same as Photoshop's -- there will be differences if you import/export layered data between the apps.

Layer group blending modes

There was some discussion about defaulting layer groups blending mode being normal by default instead of pass through. While I do use a lot of smart objects as "normal" containers (albeit mostly to filter rather than blend), I'm interested in techniques which would make normal a more useful default. Any thoughts?

OK... Here's my 2 cents. I use layer sets (layer groups) often in color correction work. Some times to get color where you want it, you may need to use 2 or 3 adjustment layers. For instance a Hue Saturation layer and a Curve layer. rather tan masking both of them, I put them into a layer set, and make one mask at the set level. This is helpful if later you need to extend the correction to include additional areas... all you need to do is modify one mask. In this situation, the layer set has to be set to pass through in order to affect pixels below it.
Now, lets say I grabbed a head from a different image, to add a person to the image I started with. If the head requires brightening and color adjustments to make it match the existing image, I find it a little neater to place the head layer in a layer set, then all the adjustment layers can go inside the set with it. But I need the blend mode of this set to be normal, so that the effects of the adjustment layers within it do not continue past the set level. Make sense?
I realize that you can link the adjustments to the layer you intend to affect, but I find the method I described to just be a little neater as far as layer management. AND if I then need to paint in hair for the head layer and paint in some eye enhancements, I can do each on its own layer inside the set. Sometimes I'll make the blend mode of the layer set for the head (just to stick with the same example) normal then put all my color adjustment layers inside a sub set with a blend mode of pass through. Then I can mask the CC layer set to only CC the eyes let's say, and I can mask the head layer set separately to blend it into the scene.
I hope all that helps. :^)

Changing blend mode while PS is applying a filter makes layer "invisible".

Came across this by chance.
I applied a D&S filter and, while PS was busy "calculating", I hit Shift-Opt-K, to set blend mode "darken".
That did set the blens mode, but also somehow made the layer have no effect. Going back in history to before the "Change blend mode" and re-doing it worked.
Screenshots:
Layer has no effect:
Stepping back, still nothing:
On step further back in history; works as expected.
Apply blend mode "Darken" again. Now it works:

I was able to reproduce this in CS6 and CS5.
Thanks for the report!

Changing Blend mode in Layer Style

On a Mac is there a shortcut to change the blend mode of the layer inside the Layer Style dialog box?? On a pc you can click on the blend mode menu and then once it's highlighted you can cycle through with arrow keys. I know outside of the Layer Style dialog you can Shift and + or - with the move tool, but the advantage of doing this inside of your layer style dialog is it doens't affect your history. Plus it's something I would like to be able to do with blend modes of any Layer Style effect. Thanks.

Actually no there isnt. The Option Shift Blend mode shortcuts should really work here but don't

Flattening Blend Mode/Layer Effects CS4

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