Adjustment layers?

rutt

Suppose I have a ton of adjustment layers: curves with blending options for different areas of the image, say. Now I want a new layer for, say sharpening. At this point, I think I have to flatten or merge the adjustment layers. Or is there something I'm missing.

Rohirrim

rutt wrote:

Suppose I have a ton of adjustment layers: curves with blending options for different areas of the image, say. Now I want a new layer for, say sharpening. At this point, I think I have to flatten or merge the adjustment layers. Or is there something I'm missing.

If you want to maintain all of your adjustment layers you don't have to flatten the image. Create a new empty layer. Then hit <ctrl-alt-shift>+e this will insert a composite image of the visible layers into the blank layer to sharpen. This works nice as now you can add a layer mask for selective sharpening, or use layer blending, or adjust layer transperancy etc. to fine tune your sharpening.

aporia

You can create a new merged visible layer for sharpening and preserve all layers: Ctrl-alt-shift [Command-option-shift]-n-e.

rutt wrote:

Suppose I have a ton of adjustment layers: curves with blending options for different areas of the image, say. Now I want a new layer for, say sharpening. At this point, I think I have to flatten or merge the adjustment layers. Or is there something I'm missing.

rutt

But it won't change (or will it?) if I go back and change one of the adjustment layers. So in some sense, I might as well flatten at this point (and then use a duplicate layer for blending options, layer mask, etc. for the sharpened layer.)

jfriend

Might want to create an action

rutt wrote:

Suppose I have a ton of adjustment layers: curves with blending options for different areas of the image, say. Now I want a new layer for, say sharpening. At this point, I think I have to flatten or merge the adjustment layers. Or is there something I'm missing.

As Rohirrim said, you don't have to flatten, but you do have to make a merged copy of your image on top of the adjustment layers. In CS2, you can do that with Alt-. (alt + period) to select the top layer and then Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E to make a new layer and put a merged copy of your image into it (warning the shortcut keystrokes are different for CS for these operations). Since this is such a common operation at the end of a retouch, you may find it useful to put this into an action. Since I've seen you do sharpening on the L channel, you may want to also select that new layer, make the L channel the active channel, click the eyball on the composite channel and then bring up your favorite sharpening dialog (USM or smart sharpen) in your action.

aporia

Adjustments on the new merge visible layer won't change any of the underlying layers. If you don't need to preserve or blend with any of the previous adjustment layers, then it would be simpler to flatten and duplicate for further adjustments.

jfriend

They will be inactive, but preserved

rutt wrote:

But it won't change (or will it?) if I go back and change one of the adjustment layers. So in some sense, I might as well flatten at this point (and then use a duplicate layer for blending options, layer mask, etc. for the sharpened layer.)

You are right. The new sharpening layer will render the adjustment layers inactive. It would be wonderful if someday, Adobe figured out how to do sharpening adjustment layers.

But the technique mentioned lets you preserve the adjustment layers and do your sharpening. If you later want to tweak the adjustment layers, you just have to delete the sharpening layer, tweak the adjustment layers and then repeat the sharpening process. Sometimes it's a lot easier to keep the adjustment layers and just redo the sharpening than it is to recreate all the adjustment layers in order to make a change. It just depends upon how sure you are that you are finished and you can dispose of the adjustment layers or how confident you are that you can quickly recreate them.

I use to always keep them. But, now I only keep them if they aren't quick to recreate (usually because there's a complicated mask involved or some retouch trick I might not easily remember).

edgework

jfriend wrote:

But the technique mentioned lets you preserve the adjustment layers and do your sharpening. If you later want to tweak the adjustment layers, you just have to delete the sharpening layer, tweak the adjustment layers and then repeat the sharpening process. Sometimes it's a lot easier to keep the adjustment layers and just redo the sharpening than it is to recreate all the adjustment layers in order to make a change. It just depends upon how sure you are that you are finished and you can dispose of the adjustment layers or how confident you are that you can quickly recreate them.

I keep them because I'm compulsive/obsessive and like to maintain CONTROL over everything. If I'm going to create a sharpening layer (or any number of other "operation" layers) I'll put the settings into the layer name, in the event I need to revisit an earlier stage and want to duplicate the later steps again.

On a slightly different track, I've also found merge layers useful for certain operations that cause a color shift. Blurring a merge layer and putting it in Soft Light, for example creates an effect that is sometimes useful, but it pushes everything red. Merging again to a new layer, putting that layer in Luminosity mode and then turning off the Soft Light layer gives the effect without the color shift. Sharpening in LAB can get around that problem, but it's difficult to perform more complex filter operations on just the lightness channel.

aporia

I'm too slow here.

I agree with John. If you can recreate your layers quickly, flatten the suckers. If you have complicated selections that would be time-consuming or difficult to remember, save them.