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.
Since we've gone this far, the image can be
flattened and will then output perfectly!