Artifacts and Aberration when Editing Layers in PS

[roberth5772568]

Hi There,

I feel a bit foolish asking this but I've honestly never come across this problem before. I'm working with a host of images that have all had the backgrounds removed in order to insert them into a poster layout. Some of these images require some additional retouching such as skin and color correction. However, when I start to build layers I noticed that I'm getting artifacts and aberration around then edges of the subject - particularly around the hair.  Is there an easy way to eliminate this issue when building layers on an image that has had the background removed? 

I've attached an example of what I'm talking about. The first image is the original the second is with two layers and the last image is with 4 layers.

Thank you!

[Barbara Ash]

I can't say for sure without examining the images, but it looks like when the background was removed, it was not removed cleanly, so when the images are stacked on top of one another bits of the background are emphasized. it also looks like the background on the image you posted may have had some magenta in it because there is a color build-up along the edge of the hair.

To check the image, you could Ctrl click (Windows) or Command click (Mac) on the original layer thumbnail. That will load a selection of the pixels on that layer. Then choose Select > Select and Mask. In the Select and Mask Properties panel, choose Black & White. That should pretty clearly show iif there are any white or gray areas in the background.

How to fix the background and make it cleaner is a whole other question.

[roberth5772568]

Thanks Barbara - Yes I tried this already and the image is perfectly clean. There are no stray elements at all anywhere on the image.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Apparently you do not quite understand the effect of superimposing Layers/pixels that have low opaqueness. (edited)

As a work-around you could, Instead of adding multiple Layers with transparency, create a Group with the transparency as a Layer Mask and populate it with the layer copies without transparency.

To remove the transparency from the Layer use Layer > Layer Mask > From Transparency and then drag the Layer Mask over to the Group.