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41

P: Ability to edit/move/transform on several layers at the same time with an active selection

Contributor ,
Dec 18, 2011 Dec 18, 2011

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This is something that would really be helpful. The ability to select objects inside your lasso tool selection that are on multiple layers. You could select the layers you want and photoshop could move and manipulate the objects inside your selection that are on those layers.Why would this useful. Well at work I have alot of elements composed together to create a single portion of the image. It would great to be able to edit these pieces as a whole without having to flatten the image or dissect each element into its on layer. I know people I work with wanted this ability to and I hope others out there might feel its useful for their work flow as well. Thanks for listening.

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57 Comments
LEGEND ,
Dec 18, 2011 Dec 18, 2011

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This may be useful, but it could be tricky to implement. There would need to be a clear visual 'marker' as to what has been selected on each layer.

At the moment, I'd duplicate/merge the layers that I want to extract something from, and go from there.

It's an interesting idea though.

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 01, 2012 Jan 01, 2012

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Hi,

i have two layers - one contains color and second one contains outline. I want to select a part of the image and free transform both the layers at the same time. (so when i for example move or rotate the selected part of my example, both the color and outline moves at the same time). Layers must stay separated, process must be sort of quick, i would love to use this all the time when drawing etc.

- Only way i managed to make this somewhat happen was to select the desired part of the image -> save the selection -> new layer via copy (on first layer) -> reselect the saved selection -> new layer via copy (on the second layer) -> select both of the new layers -> free transform. Warp doesnt work but other transforms do. But still this process is too slow and distracting even when having all the required commands hotkeyed. Is there a faster way?

Any tips are welcome!

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Community Expert ,
Jan 01, 2012 Jan 01, 2012

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Not sure you can streamline the process that much, but you don't need to save the selection.  Make your selection and copy first layer to new layer, and ctrl click the new layer to instantly reload the selection.  You can then select and combine the two copied elements, and use FT.  Not sure why Warp would not work for you - when you start the FT process you can right click and change to any of the FT options.  The whole thing would take you about five seconds!

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 02, 2012 Jan 02, 2012

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If the layer has some transparent pixels, then the selection i get from ctrl click after the first copy will only grab the visible pixels in that new layer  (and those are different from the other layer, for example a color layer + thin outline layer, both of which i need to transform at the same time, if i select part of outline layer and copy to new layer, when i then ctrl click it, it will only make thin selection around the outline, not the full rectangle selection i made originally). Also i dont want to combine the two new copied elements together to do the transform, i want to transform them simultaneously but after that still be able to merge them separately with their appropiate layer that they were copied from (outline with outline, color with color). And yep warp doesnt work, probably because im transforming two layers at the same time. I cant merge the two new layers together, it would defeat the purpose of why im trying to do this

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2012 Jan 02, 2012

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Try Select > Reselect. But even if you save and reload the selection you could make an action to kick in after you've made the initial selection. Then it's just one keyboard shortcut (if you assign one).

If you want to reuse the action in complex layer structures it should be possible if you include renaming the layers in the action. The action will work on specific layer names. You'll have to try it out; actions are powerful but have limitations.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2012 Jan 02, 2012

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Try this: select and transform the first layer. Select the second layer, and Edit > Transform > Agian (Shift + Control + T).

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 02, 2012 Jan 02, 2012

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@D Fosse:

Select - reselect is greyed out after ive made the first selection and hit new layer from copy, even in the current layer already.

@Semaphoric

Transform - transform again  requires the same selection else it applies the transformation to the whole layer (that means i have to save the selection again anyways to be able to perform exactly the same one)

Also those two would not let me see the transformation of both in "realtime" as i work on the transformation.

I will look into actions and try to see if my current method could somehow be automated as far as the selection saving and then reselecting to copy the second layer goes. (the method mentioned in the OP).

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2012 Jan 02, 2012

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So, the important thing is to see both layers transform simultaneously as you edit? Not just see one, and have the second occur automatically  immediately after you commit the transform?

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LEGEND ,
Jan 02, 2012 Jan 02, 2012

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Could you duplicate the document, transform the entire image, then copy parts of it back?  Just trying to think outside the box a bit...

-Noel

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Community Expert ,
Jan 03, 2012 Jan 03, 2012

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I wonder if you did not understand my suggestion above.  

Make your selection on the first layer, and copy that selection to a new layer.

Ctrl click that new layer, which will reload the exact same selection.

Go to your second layer and copy that to a new layer.

Select the two new layers, and merge (ctrl e)

Use Free Transform on the merged layers.

Right click to change to warp.

Place the original two layers and the merged copies into a named group for the sake of good house keeping.

---------------------------------

When ever you make a complext selection it is not a bad idea to copy that selection to a new layer.  It is much quicker to reload that selection by ctrl clicking it, than saving and reloading the selection.  With your selected image element on it's own layer, you can edit layers lower down the palet without affecting your selected image element.  You can add shadows, you can fill the shape with other pixels, you do heaps and heaps.

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LEGEND ,
Jan 03, 2012 Jan 03, 2012

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Not sure if you were intending to reply directly to me, Trevor, or just using the last Reply link in the thread... I wasn't putting down your suggestion, just offering a bit different possible way to think about the problem.

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 03, 2012 Jan 03, 2012

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@Trevor.Dennis

i did understand, but as i said ctrl clicking the new layer only selects visible pixels in it, and my layers dont cover the whole canvas, especially not the outline layer, so ctrl click will only select that noodle of pixels and thats not usable in the other layer. (doing selection in the other layer first isnt a solution)

Better description of what exactly im after:

im manually drawing characters and i keep the their black "ink" lines/outlines on separate layer from the color layer. From time to time i want to transform small part of the character, lets say warp or rotate just its leg to fix or iterate, but i want to transform both the outline and color layer at the same time with that rotation so i see realtime how it looks. I would use this all the time if it was doable quickly. Transforms and puppetwarp are so powerful when drawing that as last resort i will have to switch to drawing everything on single layer.

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LEGEND ,
Aug 16, 2012 Aug 16, 2012

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I was performing a search for this very feature. I guess its not available.

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Contributor ,
Jul 13, 2014 Jul 13, 2014

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Yeah you just select which layers you would like part of the selection.

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LEGEND ,
Aug 19, 2014 Aug 19, 2014

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Additionally a keyboard modifier that would select the layers underneath a lasso selection. I do not mean making a selection over many layers but to simply select a grouping of layers based on a lassoing.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 14, 2016 Jun 14, 2016

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I agree with this request. As I was searching for it, I only found this thread, so therefor my comment...
I see it's 4 years ago and there still is nothing to do this.

I am working as a digital matte painter (mostly creating large format pictures, partially starting from photographs) and since I need to use a LOT of pictures and sort threw them within my file, the one great feature I am missing for my work is the one asked for above:

A selection tool, like it already exists in AI, which can select multiple layers at once.

So like for example in AI, if you created a lot of path, you can select them with the lasso tool all at once, while they are on different layers.
So the same function/tool just for PS. So that you can easily select the different layers after sorting and put them in one folder (for example).

An official response to this suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

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LEGEND ,
Oct 30, 2018 Oct 30, 2018

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Selecting all objects in different layers using lasso is a must option without selecting all layers, as its time waste to select all layers first then lasso the selection. Many times need to select multiple objects on different layers.  How wonderful it would be to just make a lasso selection around all objects in different layers and just do what you want to do with them. May be holding down a few key combination to do so would be a gr8 option to have in Photoshop or Illustrator. Would make life so easy.

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LEGEND ,
Dec 08, 2018 Dec 08, 2018

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Merging the layers is what I've done then the objects aren't on separate layers.

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Contributor ,
Dec 08, 2018 Dec 08, 2018

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Sometimes that's not an option when you need to perserve layers.

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LEGEND ,
May 28, 2019 May 28, 2019

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As of Photoshop CC 2019 I cannot have more than one layer selected, lasso or marquee around a portion of my canvas and then move or transform the pixels from each layer. I've been able to do this in my other image editing software and I find it extremely useful.  It doesn't have to be the default behavior of the move or transform tool, but maybe a toggle-able menu option.

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LEGEND ,
May 28, 2019 May 28, 2019

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i already search this but didnt find it.
the idea is simple, when you have a selection and want to do a free transform on several layers at the same time, now its not possible 😞

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New Here ,
May 28, 2019 May 28, 2019

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Transforming multiple layers is already possible which is great
but with an active selection it would help enormously, digital painters
one layer contain the clean inking
another layer contain penciling (wich add texture to line)
another layers contains tones
here the example is simple but there might be much more layers

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LEGEND ,
May 28, 2019 May 28, 2019

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So recently, my Photoshop isn't transforming multiple layers with a selection. It worked last month but it then stopped. What happens now is that it doesn't transform the selection, but it transforms the whole layers selected.


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Community Beginner ,
Jun 24, 2019 Jun 24, 2019

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This is stupid... Paint tool sai has like, one dev and this feature was in PTS YEARS AGO.. What is wrong Adobe? And to people suggesting to merge the layers together.. That is stupid.. If you use PS for digital drawing/painting (like many of the users do), you're going to merge lineart with color and shadows and lighting, just so you can move a small selection? Might as well select the file and hit delete and start over while you're at it... 

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New Here ,
Aug 13, 2019 Aug 13, 2019

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Good day!

As an artist, I would love to suggest some improvements to Photoshop tool. Quite often, while drawing comics you should use two layers - one with a loop, the second with fill. There are situations when you need to edit a selected area of all image (that is, both first and second layers). Currently you can only do this step by step, by choosing and edit each layer.

It would be very convenient, if you could consider adding an second option, which is link layers – with edited selection at all selected layers SIMULTANEOUSLY.

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