Moving Selection on Multiple Layers

[austinmdiamond]

I have a multi-layered illustration with a character and a background. The background and the character share the same layers. (There is a highlight, midtone, shadow, and sketch layer.) I want to make a selection of just the character and then move the character all at once, but when I do that and try using the Move tool the whole illustration moves, not just the character. How do I do this?

[Chuck Uebele · Accepted solution]

You really need to not have the character on the background layer. It should be in a group with all layers associated with just it, so it can be moved easily. I would attempt to extract it from the BG layer.

[austinmdiamond]

That's my issue. I shift to select all the layers the character is on; lasso around it to select it; then try right-clicking to copy it to a new layer. However, when I paste, it doesn't paste just the selected part, it pastes EVERYTHING.

[JJMack]

You need to do a copy merge If you want the pixels form the composite of all visible layer selected pixels  copied to the clipboard. Otherwise only the current targeted layer selected pixels are copied to the clipboard. Shift+Ctrl+C copy merge not Ctrl+C copy.

[austinmdiamond]

Thank you guys!! JJ, that was exactly what I was looking for as far as copying and pasting! Is there a way to do that retaining the items on their separate layers?

Now how do I move the original character? Now I can move the merged layer of the character but since I still want to maintain multi-layer editability, I would prefer to keep the character on separate layers...

[JJMack]

No its a merge.

[Chuck Uebele]

That's because you have multiple layers selected. It overrides the selection that you made. What you can do is copy all the layers, then use you selection to either delete the unwanted parts or create mask.