HOW TO MAKE CROP TOOL FUNCTION INSIDE A SINGLE LAYER AND NOT FLATTEN ALL LAYERS AUTOMATICALLY

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
March 20, 2023
4 replies
2773 views

Hi, the prOblem is with the crop tool. I am wanting to crop and otherwise manipulate an image inside one layer, whilst not affecting other layers. as per instruction, I drag image onto the other layers. enter. highlight the layer iwth image I want to crop. highlight the crop tool button. box in the area of my image to crop. now i get all the layers automatically flatten for no reason and say 'Crop Preview'. When I press enter. All the layers have been flattened and the crop applies to the flattened image

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Correct answer Bojan Živković11378569

Crop tool is designed to affect document not single layer. I do not see that Crop tool is flattening layers, it just does what is designed to: crop document or entire compositions not individual layers. You have option to delete cropped pixels or just to hide them but on document/composition level not at layer level. If you want to crop pixels on single layer use other technigues like mask, mask and free transform or select > inverse then hit Backspace or use Edit > Clear.

jasonf40828310Author

Participant

thanks a bunch, that makes sense.

jason

jasonf40828310Author

Participant

thankyou so much for explaining the mask and transform techniques. ive had
trouble understanding the difference. very helpful!

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@jasonf40828310 – That would be what a layer mask, or a clipping mask is for.

Bojan Živković11378569

Correct answer

Community Expert

Crop tool is designed to affect document not single layer. I do not see that Crop tool is flattening layers, it just does what is designed to: crop document or entire compositions not individual layers. You have option to delete cropped pixels or just to hide them but on document/composition level not at layer level. If you want to crop pixels on single layer use other technigues like mask, mask and free transform or select > inverse then hit Backspace or use Edit > Clear.