Curves Adjustment will not Merge Properly

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
December 19, 2019
3 replies
864 views

Hi Folks,

There is probably a simple solution to this. I have not able to merge my curves adjustment layer with the background layer. For some reason, merging them results in this washed out, grey image (seen below). I have never had a problem with merging the curves layer before, and I'm not sure what to do.

Both layers are set to Normal blending modes. The unmerged image is what I would like the final output to be. Is there a simple solution to this? or at least an alterantive method for achieving the same look? Let me know if you need additional information, thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

D Fosse

Community Expert

It's not just that it's 8 bit, it's that it's a preview based on a downsampled and softened version. Here's the background:

When you view at less than 100% view (zoomed out) - the adjustment preview calculation is based on the on-screen zoom ratio. This is what is known as the image pyramid, cached versions at different zoom levels. One of these cached versions is pulled out and displayed when you zoom out. Not only that, but the adjustment preview is also based on this scaled version from the image pyramid.

This is an extremely noisy image. When you scale it down, all that noise is smoothed out to even gray tones. So in fact, the distribution of tones in the image is radically different. Hence the difference in appearance.

When you commit the adjustment, the full data are used. And it looks different than the preview for this reason.

The way to avoid these "false" previews is to view at 100%. This maps one image pixel to one screen pixel, no scaling, no softening, no cached version.

davescm

Community Expert

What does it look like using 100% zoom to view the " before" and "after". I ask because at zoom levels less than 66.7% the blending is done with 8 bit previews not the full image data. When you merge the full image data is used so can look different

Dave

A

Anonymous

Hi

What version of Photoshop are you using, not seeing the issue here with Photoshop 2020

If you have the most recent version try enabling this option in preferences and restarting PS to see if it helps

G

garrettm10386005Author

Participant

Hi Ged,

I am using PS 2020.

However, I discovered the issue. When I disable the "Add Noise" filter, there are no problems. It looks like the "Add Noise" filter affects the curves adjustment layer when merging.

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