P: Layer masks degrades/displays incorrectly at each new action

[Imaginerie]

It's been happening for a very long time and I usually just go back in the history, save and open again, but this time it bugged me a bit so I decided to post it as a bug:

It happens at random, sometime I can go without it happening for several months and then it happens again, with completely random files.

Basically you can look at the video and you'll see the mask starts to degrade as ifi it was corrupted file or something similar.

For the amount of time I have seen it happening, I have had 4 computers, both laptops and desktops, countless different Photoshop versions (I try to always be up to date)
Just to state that there will be no point sending a file to someone else to check, as saving it at a state where the mask is correct and open it again solves the issue. If I save at a corrupted state, Photoshop saves the corrupted state and one cannot recover the original state.

I never save the corrupted state as it's client's work, and it didn't happen today so I couldn't share a .psd here, but I will share in a comment if it happens again (and the files are shareable)

To reiterate: it's absolutely random (I honestly think it's been happening for at least 10 years, but difficult to be exact on this)

It never happens with a vector mask.
My GPUs have always been compatible.

I am not too bothered as I have been living with it for quite a long time, but just in case it can get resolved....

[MyronKa]

Yes, the mask blur was 1.2

[Imaginerie]

Good, so we can say it looks like the same issue everyone has. We have to wait for the team to come back with a solution.
I resorted to save my files without the feathering on, and put it back whenever I see it's not happening. Fingers crossed!

[davenadeau]

I've been having this issue for a while.

If I create a Color Fill layer with a mask for a drop shadow, for example, and feather it in the Layer Mask's Properties panel, the mask will shut itself off if I zoom in or out. The mask in the layers panel does not show the red X when the mask shows as turned off. Wierder still, the Mask will turn itself back on at random different zooms. 

Any ideas? The masks save correctly and are fine when I flatten the file. Really annoying.

[LAMY2017]

A screenshot or movie would help us understand how you are using a Color Fill layer with a mask for a drop shadow.

What levels of zoom are you using when you zoom in or out?

[davenadeau]

Yeah, that's the really annoying part, I can't reproduce it every time and the image I'm working on is part of an open job, so I can't show it.

As for the other items, I create a Color Fill layer of black. Place it under the item for drop shadow, make a selection from the item's layer, fill with white on the Color Fill's Layer Mask. Properties Panel, set Feather to 20%

Views as normal at 66.7% and higher. Views as Layer Mask off in viewing zoom 50, 33.3, 25, and 16.7%. Lower than that, it's back to masks on.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the file is 7965x5313 px, CMYK, total file size with layer is 1.25G

[LAMY2017]

I'm feeling like a newbie. I created an oval, then a fill layer but am stucking creating the shadow. One of the Adobe community with the right knowledge and skills will step out of the shadows momentarily, I'm sure.

[CMass]

That’s kind of a spooky-cool entrance—I’m getting major Darkwing Duck vibes. 😄

Hi @davenadeau! I’m with @LAMY2017 on this one—a video and your system info would go a long way in helping us narrow this down. You can grab your system info by going to Help > System Info in Photoshop, then copy and paste that into your response.

Also, check out this related post—it might shed some light on what you're seeing:https://adobe.ly/4dB9fkG

^CM

[Trevor.Dennis]

Are you saying that you place a layer filled with black below an object layer, and use an unlinked layer mask to make that layer work as a drop shadow?  That's an interesting way of doing it if you are, but it works

[Trevor.Dennis]

Right!  I've managed to break it.

I wondered if it might be a vector mask, but that worked as expected.

I tried turning the msak off and on via right clicking inside the mask (instead of Shift clicking the mask). No change.

I finally managed to break it by Alt clicking the mask to view it full screen, and zooming in and out (because you mentioned different zoom ratios), and that broke the way the mask displayed in the layers panel (as in the screen shot).

The document window still works as expected. Tabbing to this forum window and back to Photoshop had everything displaying properly.

So, in my case, just a display issue.  Windows 11, RTX 4080, Studio driver.  I don't think that tallys with what you have described, so more data would be appreciated.

[davenadeau]

Apologies for the silence. Been in the weeds with work (yay!).

System details:

M1 Mac Studio 2022

65GB Ram

mac OS 15.4.1

PS 2025

For clarity, when this happens, it's as if the Layer Mask displays as turned off in the scene. I can't show the specific file where this happens as it's an open job covered by NDA's. I can say that it is CMYK, 7965x5313 px, multiple layers and layer folders putting the file at about 1.3GB in size.

Also for clarity of how I make drop shadows, in this instance the scene is a studio shot of cookies flat on a white background, viewed from above. The cookies are silo'd out. I make a selection of each cookie by command-clicking on a layer, then create a Color Fill layer with that selection making a mask. The Color Fill layer is set to 0 C, 0M, 0Y, 100K. Move the now-shadow layer below the cookie layer, then down and right in scene to follow the lighting on the cookie. Open the Properties panel and set the Feather to 20 px and the opacity to 36%. Job specs require a separate later for shadows as opposed to Layer fx.

So, zooming in and out using Command-Plus and Minus will, in this case, shut off the Layer Masks on the Color Fill layers I just made. When flattened, everything works correctly, displaying the shadows normally as the masks would do as if they were on. This doesn't happen every time I use this technique, however. I tried recreating it with some generic stuff just now and it didn't happen. 

Here's where it gets weirder. I was experimenting a little. I tried making a Lasso selection around the masks on the shadow layers, inverted the selection and filling that mask area with black. Boom, the mask shows as working properly. I did the same to each mask and, just like that, problem fixed.

I don't know y'all, my noodle is thoroughly baked over this. It's working and displaying properly now. If anyone has ideas, I'd love to hear them. I can only guess that my file sizes in the situations where this happens is making the video card have a panic attack. I've done the same technique on larger files and didn't have it happen, though.

Thanks to everyone who gave situation this some braincells.

[Hyanri]

I have this issue for a while now (as early as 2023), different computers, different Adobe accounts, different works. As long as layer masks are involved, especially in cases where there are at least three layer masks, Photoshop seem to break them regardless of graphic settings and editing. Sometimes they become blocks of rectangles, sometimes like horizontal TV noise - most times you just have to move the blur value and put it where you need it to refresh it, but it's a lot of work once you have a lot of layers. Generally given solutions does not help. It's happens randomly, too so I can't help narrowing a lead to how the problem starts; anything as regular as moving objects (with no mask layer) breaks the mask layers of other elements thus can happen to any file and not file specific I've rarely seen this issue brought up so I'm replying so I can be updated when a fix happens, or if there's something I can do to help.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

@Hyanri , are you sure this happens even if GPU usage is turned off completely (which only takes effect after restarting Photoshop)? 

[LAMY2017]

Good catch on restarting Ps, @c.pfaffenbichler 

I remember the bad old days when not only the app but the machine had to be restarted for many changes to take effect.

[folcom]

I want to report a bug, that wasn't fixed in a while. When working on bigger files over 800MB apparently layer masks seem to break, which in this example work still fine when selecting the mask bounds with cmd+ left mouse click, same when visualizing the mask option + left mouse click ... but sometimes make me lose the selcetion masked.

Do you have any work arounds?
Would really appreciate it, thanks in advance 🙂

[Aleke]

Hi @folcom! Welcome to the community!

I gave this a try on my end but wasn’t able to reproduce the issue. When you get a chance, could you share a short screen recording showing what’s happening? That would really help us understand what’s going on.

It’d also be great if you could include your system info. You can find it in Photoshop under Help > System Info. Just copy the details into a text file and attach it to your reply, or feel free to share it through Google Drive, WeTransfer, or whatever works best for you.

Thanks a bunch! 😊
Alek

[Claire H.]

Hi @Folco_8100, I'm just checking in to see if you are still running into this issue? Let us know how things are going. Happy to keep troubleshooting with you if needed. Thanks! ^CH

[folcom]

Dear @Aleke dear @Claire H.   thank you so much for having a look into it, sadly every now and then its happening if either surpass around layer 50-60 or when the file size gets over 700-800mb. I'm using a MacBook M3 Pro wit 16GB of RAM and 512GB of ssd storage. Something else that occured to me just a few days ago was the following