I'm experimenting with and learning some of the many attributes of Photoshop. I have found a picture to experiment with (Attached). Some of the features that I have built in seem to have worked but others do not. The features are:B&WCropVignetGrainBorderSelected area (People)Selected area (Room)Background.I seem to be able to adjust many of the features except for the selected areas. I want to be able to adjust them but I don't seem to be able to do this in properties. What have I done wrong? Any suggestions, information, or experience would be received gratefully!

Known Participant

Question

Getting Photoshop layers in the correct order ...can you help?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
August 18, 2022
2 replies
1625 views

I'm experimenting with and learning some of the many attributes of Photoshop. I have found a picture to experiment with (Attached). Some of the features that I have built in seem to have worked but others do not.

The features are:

B&W
Crop
Vignet
Grain
Border
Selected area (People)
Selected area (Room)
Background.

I seem to be able to adjust many of the features except for the selected areas. I want to be able to adjust them but I don't seem to be able to do this in properties. What have I done wrong?

Any suggestions, information, or experience would be received gratefully!

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

How familiar are you with how layers work in Photoshop? From what we can see, the vignet layer has no mask and fills the entire screen, so it would hide anything lower down the stack. To be sure everything is working, try selecting all of the layers and using Ctrl , (Cntrl comma) to turn them all off. Then turn the layers back on one at a time starting from the bottom of the stack, and see if each new layer is doing what it should. At the very least, this would isolate problems allowing you to trouble shoot them. As things stand, from what you have told us I am not at all sure what you are asking.

F

FyxItAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks for your reply.

I'm not very familiar with layers other than watching YouTube and hearing that they are like sheets of glass with things on them through which you look down.

I turned the layers off and, one by one turned them from the bottom. All was OK until I turned on the "Border" layer. This had the effect of shutting off any control of the layers below it.

I put a border on (from memory!) with this technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAywLS53aV4

Continuing upwards, the next layer that caused problems (as you identified) was the vignette.

For this I used the Camera Raw Filter from the filter tab (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiMoCkJ3fHw)

So what it seems that I need to do is find different ways of putting a border and a vignette on. I also want to sharpen some areas. How can I do this without running into similar problems, please?

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

»Some of the features that I have built in seem to have worked but others do not.« is a pretty vague description.

Please provide a meaningful description of at least one of the problems.

The Layer-structure you created seems peculiar, why didn’t you use Layer Masks instead of clipping the pixel Layers?

F

FyxItAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for your reply.

The features that have been successful were:

I successfully converted the image to B&W and I put this at the top so as to give me the tonal environment for other adjustments such as grain and curves adjustments.
I cropped the image towards the end of my work and just before putting in the vignette, this was to take out some small amounts of the room and achieve a better aspect ratio than the shot as taken. This seems to have worked well and I used a nondestructive process so I could restore this if I wanted to.
The vignette went in, later on, to try to emphasize further the two subject figures and it may be a little heavy so I may return to this.
I have put a border in and I will make a further assessment of how effective this has been when I do a trial print.

»Some of the features that I have built in seem to have worked but others do not.« is a pretty vague description.
Please provide a meaningful description of at least one of the problems.

The main thing that didn't work, and the reason for my posting was the areas that I selected. I made a selection, using the object selection tool, of the two figures, as my second action after creating a background layer. I put this selection and its inverse on separate layers and clipped curve layers to them hoping to be able to tweak them later on. This has not worked! I can't adjust these.

The Layer-structure you created seems peculiar, why didn’t you use Layer Masks instead of clipping the pixel Layers?
I am feeling my way with this as a beginner. It would help me if you could explain why you think that they are peculier and please tell me about Layer Masks vs clipping pixel layers.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

What are the Blend Modes, Opacity and Fill of the Smart Object instances »Viignet«, »Grain« and »Border«?

If they are essentially solid then you won’t see changes made to the lower layers.

»Room« and »People« are what seems a bit peculiar to me.

You clipped them instead of using one Layer Mask.

• Layer Masks often offer advantages compared to clipping.

• Two »inverted« Selections/Masks/Clippings can cause unintended intermediate values while using only one can help avoid this issue. (Admittedly this is not always easy to implement.)

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