Why can I not retouch my bottom layer?

Question

Hello!
I ran an action (that I purchased) on a photo.
Then I uploaded it to a slideshow for my customer to see.
She now wants to purchase it, so I need to reopen it and retouch the person's face.
Which layer do I edit on?  Nothing changes when I work on the background layer....well nothing I can see.  I can see it when I make the top layer invisible.
I have CS5.  I just switched from CS.  I remember this working on CS.
Thanks,
Jennifer

Answer 1

What is it you want to do, cloning & healing etc?
Whatever it is, you don't need to start over. Here are some non-destructive otions:
1) There's usually a place in the layer stack (ie, above the pixel layers and below the adjustment layers. In this case probably between the Local Contrast and Range Compression layers) where you can insert a blank layer and clone on it with the tool set to "current & below".
2) Click on the background layer, then keystroke CMD+J (mac) to duplicate it and clone on that. (This may not have the full effect depending on the belnd mode of those pixel layers above it, and what you are trying to do below.)
3) Go to the topmost layer, keystroke CMD+OPT+SFT+E to make a composite layer at the top pf the stack and work on, or above, it.
And if you want to work destructively, drag the lock icon of the BG layer to the trash and work directly on it. But see the caveats of #2 above.