P: "Adobe Community Help" keeps popping open (Windows)

Everything in the left hand column of Layer Styles is a "Style". So Drop Shadow is a Style. A Layer Style Preset that includes settings for multiple styles is generally referred to as an Effect.

See my comment below about what's a style and what's an effect. I'm sorry for the terminology confusion; I've never had these quite straight I think. In this case I mean "the individual effects".

I should have worded that differently. I meant "try deleting all the individual preset styles one by one".

I have always had some terminology confusion about what's a style I think.

If a preset embodies a "style" what is "Drop Shadow" by itself? An effect?

-Noel

Allan is right, the presets seem to be safe, but it's the default settings for the individual styles.

I've found that if I set some specific values - for example 5 for the Distance parameter of Drop Shadow - then click the [Make Default] button, it will work for a while but at some time later the default will change to something nonsensical like 197 or 0. This has been true for multiple versions of Photoshop, just as the pop-up Help bug has.

And I don't think it's every parameter, just many of them. I've noticed it in Drop Shadow and Bevel & Emboss, because those are the ones I've used the most.

I dont believe Noel and I were referring to Layer Styles Presets, I was referring to the Default Styles in each subset (drop shadow etc) of the layer stlyes dialogue box (ie link): http://smithany.com/defaultexample.png

Its not the name changing, it is the values set in each of these boxes that go haywire on occasion, seemingly not related to anything. I understand what you are saying about the Presents being stored in a pref's file, not in PSD tho.

Your comment "So, the issues could be connected. It could be the issue results from loading corrupt Layer Style presets, or in the case of the Color Picker, corrupt Color Swatches or Color Libraries. " seems quite plausible.

Opening PSD files should have no effect on your Layer Style presets. Remember, a preset is only a list of saved settings. If the settings you are using in a Layer Style are not part of a preset, that is, these settings have not been saved for reuse in the future, Photoshop doesn't care. It doesn't try to match your current Layer Style settings with an existing preset or try to create a preset from your current settings.

However, I haven't seen this issue with Layers Style presets getting corrupted. Is it only an issue with the name changing? Do the presets still work? Do you mean that the original file you saved your presets to becomes corrupted? If so, where is it stored?

Once you load a preset (of any sort, not just Layer Styles) that information is part of your Photoshop Preference file. Photoshop no longer references the file you used to load the preset. So if the original file is corrupted in anyway it should not have an effect on Photoshop (except at the time of loading).

So, the issues could be connected. It could be the issue results from loading corrupt Layer Style presets, or in the case of the Color Picker, corrupt Color Swatches or Color Libraries. Things would make a lot more sense then, why we don't encounter the issue on our side and why things carry over from computer to computer for those that do.

Noel that has happened to me quite often as well...you said: "what I see quite often is my saved default Layer Styles for Drop Shadow and Bevel & Emboss get lost"

My thoughts were always that on legacy /older versions of PS PSDs when you would open them it somehow overwrite your defaults for Layer Styles (because there were not the same defaults available back in the day and I still have old CS/CS2/etc. docs floating around my hard drives which might get opened or edited from time to time).

I've definitely had that issue quite often where layer styles defaults are suddenly missing or incorrect for no apparent reason. Since many of us do have the issue with help in the layer styles or color picker dialogues, it could be helpful to know if this is a backwards compatibility feature or not.

No, not related to the text bug. If this is an application bug, it'll have to be something to do with event processing.

Something else to try that seems a bit buggy sometimes, and related to Layer Styles... Try appending one of the preset sets, then deleting all the individual styles (e.g., by right-clicking on each one then choosing Delete Style).

-Noel

I've never had a Wacom either.