Photoshop Merging Blended Layers

BradMyers82 · Sep 2008

Hello, I'm seeking the wisdom of the people at polycount once again.

My question is: Is there a simple way to merge layers that have blending options on them, without disrupting the effect they are having?

Here is a hypothetical scenario I am making up.
To better explain:

Layer 1 is a gray filled box
Layer 2 has some shadows and highlights painted on with 40% Opacity
Layer 3 has a a texture placed on top with the blending option Overlay at 50% Opacity

Lets say you wanted to merge layer 2 and 3 to simplify things a bit, or edit both on the same layer with the smudge brush or something.

If you merge layer 3 to 2 (cntrl E) It losses the Overlay blending option that you set.

Is there a way to apply this blending option in advance so its state is set back to Normal so you can then merge layers?
Or is it possibly to simply merge the two without effecting the blending that was taking place.

Hope this makes sense, its just an issue I have never found a solution to in Photoshop.

Thanks in advance.

Quokimbo · Sep 2008

I think I know exactly what you are talking about. and what I do is bust this out

ctrl+a (this selects everything) then
ctrl+shift+c (copies all the layers into one image) then
ctrl+v (pastes)

It copies everything you have on the document and then will paste it all on top as a new layer.

Hope it helps...

Added: Also make sure you are on have the top layer selected when you do that or it may paste it in between layers and looks like it does nothing.

AnimeAngel · Sep 2008

I have had this problem in the past also and I don't have Photoshop available at the moment to confirm my solution, but I believe I solved that by making a layer set. You then move both layers in to the set folder it creates and then collapse that onto another layer. Then when you collapse it then assumes the properties of the layer set instead of the individual layers and should hold your information.

Slum · Sep 2008

You cant really do this. Photoshop blends everything per layer. As of now there's no concept of sub-layer or per-pixel blending modes.

Your two options are merging everything underneath what you really need, or using a lot of layer sets.

Ghostscape · Sep 2008

If you create a blank layer underneath the layers you want to merge, select them all, and then go to merge selected (I think this defaults to ctrl-E when you have multiple layers selected) it should merge them with the correct transparency settings.

Quokimbo · Sep 2008

The only thing I do not like about merging all the layers down is you cannot go back to what it was before once you save it out, or pass up so many actions(how ever many you have set for memory to keep up with it).

When you do what I said it puts a new layer on top of everything, you work on it dont like it, you delete the layer and try again. never lose any layers. and then I will clean up layers at the end. Merging and consolidating and whatnot.

but hey my texturing needs work anyways so maybe I need to change my work flow :P

BradMyers82 · Sep 2008

Thanks a lot for the replies everyone.

Quokimbo: I think that was the solution I had heard about before, only I forgot the shortcut, and honestly don't know if there is a way to copy everything on all layers without using that shortcut (like something in the menus you can navigate to).

Anyways thanks for letting me know about the best possible solution.

Slum: At least I know now there isn't an exact solution to what I had in mind, Quokimbo's method will work just fine for now.

Much appreciated everyone!

Photoshop Merging Blended Layers

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