Hi Jessica

Give this keyboard shortcut a try:

Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E

It will make a copy and merge all of your layers onto a new layer.

Here's a video of it:

https://youtu.be/aKDwcgB0s6I

Hope you find this helpful

-S

OK. This is a frequent complaint, with a very specific explanation. Read carefully:

When you view at other zoom ratios than 100%, the adjustment previews are calculated based on that zoom ratio. This is for performance reasons.

Say you view a line drawing at 33%. If you then add a Levels layer, the effect is calculated from that 33% version - in other words, a downsampled and softened version. This softening introduces intermediate gray values where the full image data contain only pure black and pure white.

So that Levels adjustment appears to work on these intermediate gray levels that aren't really there! In the original image data, there is only black and white, no gray.

This is important: A mid-tonal adjustment has no effect on pure black and pure white. These are the fixed endpoints! White is still white, and black is still black.

This is why you always have to judge adjustments at 100%! This gives you a truthful preview of what will happen when you commit the adjustment or flatten the image.

In a normal photograph, this effect is negligible or non-existent. It's not normally a problem. But when you have a binary image, or a very noisy one (like e.g. a starry night sky) - it becomes something you have to take into consideration. Anything that will change image values with a little bit of softening will be affected by this.

Always preview adjustments at 100% zoom.

Hi,

Sometimes if you want to keep you PSD as original, one solution is  "Copy Merged" this current file and paste in a new file.

Regards

Sorry, make that two screenshots naturally – one before and one after merging.

Could you please post a screenshot taken at View > 100% and with the pertinent Panels (Layers, Channels, Options Bar, …) visible?