Layer locking in focus-stacking compositions

[RecipeTaster]

Hi everyone,
In my work, I do a lot of focus-stacking compositing that can't really be automated since it's all manually shot. This means that I need to tweak the stacking-masks a lot and all over the picture.
On the brush tool, ctrl-clicking to select a layer is extremely useful but every now and then I end up shifting a layer without noticing just by the clicking action. Of course, locking a layer position would be a solution if only that didn't render the layer unselectable! Rather infuriating honestly.
Does anybody know a solution to circumvent the problem? 
Thanks for the help!

[D Fosse]

Locking layer posistion doesn't affect any other tools than the move tool. You can still use the brush tool, both on the pixel content and on the mask. If that's not the case at your end, you may have corrupt preferences and you should try to reset them.

The ctrl key spring-loads the move tool - iow, as long as you hold down ctrl, the move tool is active regardless of what other tool is selected. It's the same as pressing the spacebar to get the hand tool. So yes, ctrl-clicking in the image is a bit risky unless you lock position.

Oh, and depending on how you work, you may want to uncheck "auto-select layer" in the move tool's options (options bar at the top). It can easily trip you up and it's always safer to select layer in the Layers panel.

[RecipeTaster]

Pressing ctrl while on the brush is how I select my layers while working on masks, but if you lock their position they become unselectable.

[D Fosse]

Why don't you just select the mask in the Layers panel?

It sounds like you have "auto-select layer" on, which IMO is always risky and error-prone.

And again no, they don't become unselectable here. Everything still works except the move tool (and if you try you get a pop-up message to that effect)..

[RecipeTaster]

I do have auto-select active in the Move Tool, yes (it's the only way to identify to which layer the piece of image I want to work on belongs to without switching on-off 10 layers every 2min).
The Layers are selectable in the layer panel of course, but the auto-select doesn't work on them so, while using the Brush Tool, ctrl-clicking on an image won't select the layer for me. 😞