P: Delete layer doesn't delete the whole layer if the mask is selected

[waishie]

Hi there! How to off new feature? Now for deleting layer i should press "Delete" twice - first for mask, second for layer. How can I fix that? I need deleting layer and mask together.

[Dominik Sourcé]

When you are on a layer with as selected layer mask and you press backspace in Photoshop 2021 only the layer mask gets deleted. Previously the whole layer got deleted. It seems like a feature, but I haven't found it in the feature summary/fixed issues list. Which leads me to 2 questions: 1. Is anyone else seeing this behavior? 2. What other undocumented changes are there?

[Yves-CH]

Hello, sur Mac, même comportement, et je trouve ça très bien !
Je ne sais pas comment c'était avant la mise à jour !

[Dominik Sourcé]

@yves_crausaz

Thanks for checking. I also think it's a useful behavior. 

[Mark C. Dahm]

Caps lock does it, but then ya-gotta uncaps lock it back, so maybe it's a wash.

[J453]

If you have a mask selected it will be deleted first. If you select the layer, not the mask, the whole layer including the mask will be deleted.

[waishie]

I understand that but i need old feature for deleting layer together with mask. Other way - I should press delete twice.

[J453]

I've asked engineering to take a look.

[waishie]

It will be very helpful. For example I'm using correction layer and don't like result - I press delete for watching previous result but removing only mask. Earlier was better. Maybe it can be optionally in settings

[Charismatic_yogiB82A]

Please remove this feature/bug. it is very annoying. Now in order to delete a layer with a mask, you need to click twice on it in order to deselect the mask. then you can delete the layer and not only the mask.

Clicking on the layer and pressing the Delete key now deletes only the mask because the mask is active. in PS 2020 it deleted the layer even when the mask was selected.

Please FIX. it is a huge workflow change!

[Charismatic_yogiB82A]

Maybe you should have created a separate key for deleting only the mask instead of breaking the existing behavior.

I created my own shortcut for deleting only the mask several years ago.

thanks!

[waishie]

Thanks God I'm not alone! Hope they will hear us

[Dominik Sourcé]

I think I have found a workaround which perfectly mimics the old behavior. It is based around the script events manager. (In case someone is not familiar with it: with the script events manager you can make Photoshop listen for events and when they happen they trigger an action.) So the idea is, whenever you delete a layer or vector mask, Photoshop "hears" that and then automatically deletes the layer. 

Setup:

1. record an action which deletes a layer

2. on macOS navigate to User/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop 2021 Settings and open script events manager.xml with a text editor (sorry I don't know the path on Windows, but Google probably does ...)

3. in case you never used the script events manager before, I think you should see about 8 event entries (like the one below).

4. let's add another event. simply copy and paste the code from below after the last entry in your xml-file. you may need the change the number in the first and last line of the code according to the number of entries that are already in your file!

<9>
<name>Delete layer mask</name>
<value>delete</value>
<valueClass>channel</valueClass>
</9>

5. in Photoshop open the script events manager via file > scripts

6. in the Photoshop-events dropdown-menu you should now see "Delete layer mask" (that's the thing we added to the xml file) > select it

7. now choose "action" and select the action you created at the beginning in the dropdown menu.

8. then press "add" on the right-hand side of the window

9. finally press "done"

If nothing went wrong, from now on every time you delete a layer or vector mask, the layer should automatically be deleted as well.

I have tested it and basically it works fine on my machine. But right now I don't know if there are any downsides to this. So use at your own risk. (Would love to hear your feedback!)

[Dominik Sourcé]

OK, there is one problem with the workaround above. The active layer also get's deleted when you delete a channel in the channels panel. I totally missed that yesterday ... I see if I can find a solution ...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I can't even use my delete or backspace to delete any layer anymore in PS 22.. On iMac 2017 with latest MacOS

[waishie]

@JeffreyTranberry Hi! There is new version 22.0.1 and any changes in our problem??

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I still can't delete anything with my keyboard 😄

[Charismatic_yogiB82A]

Still not resolved in 22.1.0 !? Again I need to be careful to make sure that the Icon of the layer is selected and not the mask to delete the layer and not only the mask.

Can you give us the opportunity to select the old behavior, to delete the whole layer no matter what is selected? this is introducing extra steps!

thanks!

[waishie]

Yeah so annoying! It seems like couple persons using photoshop, because only we asking that.

[waishie]

Please do something! It's still very annoying and slows down my work!

[carminecuccuru]

Same problem and it is very annoying and above all it slows down my work a lot.

[waishie]

@salvatore_carmine_cuccuru Second patch with useless updates but our problem they ignoring

[waishie]

Hello? Any movements in our problem??

[omarjosef.com]

Adobe, please. Photoshop is used by a lot of professionals. We don't want to change the way we work in areas that didn't need change. What was the purpose of this change?? What is the advantage?? If you wanted to add something new, add it without changing something we already used or at least ASK the members of the industry what they (we) want.

[AgilityGordons]

As of now, Oct 2021, I still have to do a double delete to delete a layer. Previously, I was able to hit delete from keyboard and the entire layer would be deleted. This is a pain, especially if I'm working, and trying to try different layers to see how they work, and deleting the ones I want to keep. Any fix on this yet? Thank you

[J453]

This is working As Designed. Delete key will delete the select item. It's worked this way going back to CS2.