Merge Layers?

[fredrikg29453865]

i have an image added a layer with a mask. When I merge the layer the effect I applied on the layer dissipers. any solutions?

[davescm]

Can you show a before and after screenshot, including the image and the layers panel in each shot

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

fredrikg29453865  wrote

i have an image added a layer with a mask. When I merge the layer the effect I applied on the layer dissipers. any solutions?

You could add a copy merged layer to the top of the stack (Shift Ctrl Alt E — Shift Cmd Opt E).  That usually fixes that problem, but it would be interesting to see your layers panel to try and work out why this is happening.

[pixxxelschubser]

Mostly also works:

menu: Layers > Layer Style > Create Layer

or

menu: Layers > Rasterize > Layer Style

There are other possibilities depend on your image and the layers panel.

[JJMack]

Layer effect pixels are rendered for layers they do not exist in the layer.  If you merge layers where some of the layer have layers style effects I can imagine there may be problems as layers merge down the resulting layer shape may change and not only does the upper layers pixels need to be merges with the lower layer, the upper layer style effects would also need be merges in and the lower layer effect would need be rendered before the layer merge and the resulting merged layer should not have a layer style.   Yet I have seen cases where Photoshop has left a  layer style on the merged layers layer and the result not look correct be of the change in content and shape. Layer masks may add to the problem I not sure.

There can also be problems merging shape layers.  While the vector paths merge perfectly.  A shape layer has a singe Fill.  If one shape layer has a red fill and the second one blue what color would the merge shape have.  I believe the top color wins.  However the merge shape does not look like the composite of the red and blue shape layers there was two colors. 

If you merging the layers to reduce the documents PSD file size it maybe better to make a smart object layer using the group of layer you want to merge  I believe Photoshop will render a good composite for the group of layers to use as the smart object layers content. These can bot be changed.  However you can rasterize the layer to eliminate the smart object overhead and have a normal pixel layer..  Smart object layers normally resize like raster layer via interpolation.  The exception are Placed Vector File like .AI and .SVG these are considered vector smart object because of the way Photoshop handles these

[fredrikg29453865]

Thanks guys for helping  out. I’ll send screenshots when I come back from work.

The thing is that it has alea worked until now. Even working in LR and going over to PS doing some adju with layers and back to LR and the changes done in PS are with the picture over to LR