Background vs. regular layers

Question

When I open an image into Photoshop from Camera Raw, it always opens as a background layer. I therefore have to convert every image I open into a regular layer, as I have no use for background layers. Is there a way to make opening images as a regular layer the default behavior so I don't have to constantly do this conversion? I see a way to do it when creating new files, but can find no way to do it when opening images from Camera Raw. I'm using Photoshop 21.2.7.

Stephen Marsh · Answer

The following two scripts work fine for me from a raw camera file with the open event for a single or multiple images:

// (c) Copyright 2008.  Adobe Systems, Incorporated.  All rights reserved.

/*
@@@BUILDINFO@@@ OpenAsLayer.jsx 1.0.0.0
*/

var begDesc = "$$$/JavaScripts/OpenAsLayer/Description=Assign this to the open document event. This will promote a document with only a background layer to a layer with the document name." // endDesc


// on localized builds we pull the $$$/Strings from a .dat file, see documentation for more details
$.localize = true;

if ( app.documents.length > 0 ) {
	var doc = activeDocument;
	if ( doc.layers.length == 1 && doc.activeLayer.isBackgroundLayer ) {
		doc.activeLayer.isBackgroundLayer = false;
		doc.activeLayer.name = doc.name;
	}
}

// (c) Copyright 2008.  Adobe Systems, Incorporated.  All rights reserved.

/*
@@@BUILDINFO@@@ OpenAsLayer.jsx 1.1.0.0
*/

var begDesc = "$$$/JavaScripts/OpenAsLayer/Description=Assign this to the open document event. This will promote a document with only a background layer to a layer with the document name." // endDesc


// on localized builds we pull the $$$/Strings from a .dat file, see documentation for more details
$.localize = true;

var stripExtension = true;

if ( app.documents.length > 0 ) {
	var doc = activeDocument;
	if ( doc.layers.length == 1 && doc.activeLayer.isBackgroundLayer ) {
		doc.activeLayer.isBackgroundLayer = false;
		var docNameNoExtension = doc.name;
		if (stripExtension) {
			var extensionIndex = docNameNoExtension.lastIndexOf (".");
			if (extensionIndex != -1) {
				docNameNoExtension = docNameNoExtension.substr(0, extensionIndex);
			}
		}
		doc.activeLayer.name = docNameNoExtension;
	}
}

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