Adjustment layer/mask not working properly?

[Peter244417293myf]

Hello! Hopefully this has a simple solution but I've already spent about an hour trying to figure this out so it is eluding me.

I want to apply a threshold adjustment layer to only the layer beneath it and not the background. Here is what I have with the adjustment hidden, which I want applied to the blurry black line (the "Friday copy" layer):

When I make the adjustment visible, it applies to the "Friday" layer and the background, as expected:

But if I then hide the background layer, the adjustment is no longer applied to "Friday" and it looks blurry again:

When I tried applying the adjustment layer as a clipping mask that also doesn't seem to work:

Ultimately I want the threshold applied only to the "Friday" layer with the purple background visible and not adjusted.Is there something obvious I am doing wrong? Please help before I chuck my laptop 🙂

[War Unicorn]

Clipping the effect should only apply to the layer it's clipping to. Something go kablooey, maybe?

Did you try a preferences reset?

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html (About a quarter of the way down.)

[Peter244417293myf]

Unfortunately that did not solve my problem. Threshold from adjustment layer still goes away on the layer underneath when I hide the background layer.

[davescm · Accepted solution]

What you are seeing is expected.

Threshold will turn the pixels black (0,0,0) if there value is below the threshold or white (255,255.255) if above the threshold. The minimum threshold setting is 1 so it does change any pixels that already black 0,0,0. That is the crux of it. When clipped to the layer below there are no grey pixels to act on - only black with transparency based on the blur. A semi transparent black pixel is not grey it is just RGB0,0,0 with transparency of x. It only becomes grey when blended with the layer below. But by clipping your adjustment to the Friday Copy layer there is no blend to act on - only the black on the layer. So it does not change any values.

Dave

[Peter244417293myf]

Thanks! This makes sense, I was able to fix by adding a white layer with Darken blend mode, and merge them:

Which stays when I unhide the background:

I'm sure there is a better way to get around this but it works for now.

[ryanl22249422]

Hi Dave, 

If you are not able to have the adjustment layer be a clipping mask for the text, how can you make it so that the adjustment layer only effects the layer beneath it?