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Oh, how we've come to love layer styles in just
a few short months! They're easy, they're fast, they're "live,"
and they can be saved. What's not to like? Well, honestly,
sometimes they don't output correctly. Now and then you may find
that layer styles either fail to output or don't output
correctly. There's a way to ensure that you get exactly what you
want.
If it hasn't happened to you, it will. Someday,
some way, you'll be a witness in "The Case of the Disappearing
Style." You'll open an image and the layer style won't show
properly. (If the style just isn't visible, make sure that
you're at 100% zoom. Sometimes screen redraw isn't accurate.)
Or, worse yet, you'll output an image and the layer style will
be missing or will look completely different.
One of the great things about Photoshop's layer
styles is that they're "live." You can change the style any time
without actually affecting any of the image's pixels. You can
also use the term "non-destructive." [No pixels were harmed in
the making of this Layer Style!] However, that can sometimes
create problems with printers or imagesetters. We can handle
those problems by making the layer style "permanent." We can
build it right into the original layer. As part of the layer,
the style will output like any other pixels in the image.
As always, it's best to work on a copy of your
image. For our sample image, we have a photo on Layer 1 and a
plain white background on the "Background" layer.
We'll apply a couple effects to create a layer
style. A simple drop shadow and an inner bevel make the image
stand out from the flat white background.
To make these effects permanent, we'll first use
the menu command Layer> Style> Create Layers.
Photoshop will give you a warning that some
layer effects cannot be reproduced when creating layers. Click
OK.
Another look at the Layers palette (using the
Super Economy Size thumbnails) shows what Photoshop has done.
– The Inner Bevel has been divided into two
pieces, the highlights and the shadows. Each is on a separate
layer.
– The Inner Bevel highlights and shadows are grouped with Layer
1. (They are indented and show the downward-pointing arrow.)
– The Drop Shadow has been placed on a separate layer below
Layer 1.
– At this point, Layer 1 remains unaffected. The actual
picture's pixels have not been changed.
Let's take a quick look at why the inner bevel
layers are grouped with Layer 1. When we hide the drop shadow,
we can see that the inner bevel looks just right.
When we ungroup the inner bevel layers from
Layer 1, we can see how they're created. (A green layer has been
added above the Background layer to show the extent of the inner
bevel highlights.) Notice that the highlights and shadows are
actually much larger than the part normally visible. They extend
well past the edge of the image to which they have been applied.
Grouping the inner bevel's layers with Layer 1
allows Photoshop to use the transparency of Layer 1 as a mask to
clip the inner bevel highlights and shadows. When the layers are
grouped, the transparent areas of Layer 1 remain transparent.
(You can group and ungroup layers using commands
from the Layer menu. You can also Option-click/Alt-click on the
line dividing two layers. The upper layer will be grouped with
that below.)
Outputting at this point could still produce
some problems. As you saw, the inner bevel's highlight and
shadow are masked. That mask may be lost when printing. The
solution is to merge the style layers with Layer 1.
However, simply linking and merging produces
exactly what we don't want to see: the overlap of the inner
bevel shadow onto the drop shadow. Compare these two images. The
top image is our original. The lower is what we get when we
simply merge the effects layers into Layer 1. Notice how the
overlap of the excess inner bevel shadow and the drop shadow
produces a substantially different look to the right and below
the photo.
To avoid this problem, we can permanently clip
the inner bevel highlights and shadows to prevent them from
extending past the edges of the photo. (Follow these steps
before linking and merging the layers.)
– Command-click [Control-click for PCs] on the
thumbnail of Layer 1 in the Layers palette. This makes a
selection of all non-transparent pixels on the layer.
– Use the menu command Select> Inverse, or the keyboard shortcut
Command-Shift-I [Control-Shift-I]. This reverses the selection,
selecting all of the transparent pixels on Layer 1.
– Without deselecting, make Inner Bevel Shadow the active layer
in the Layers palette by clicking on it once.
– Press the Delete [Backspace] key. This deletes all pixels that
extend past the edge of Layer 1's non-transparent pixels.
– Switch to Inner Bevel Highlights in the Layers palette.
– Delete.
We can now safely link and merge the layers, and
the inner bevel effect will be restricted to those areas
originally intended. As you can see, we now have exactly the
same look as the original, but the image consists of only a
background layer (plain white) and Layer 1, which now has all
the effects permanently integrated.
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