Need help managing the visibility of selected layers

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 25, 2018
1 reply
4801 views

I usually have multiple layers, arranged in groups. Using "Ctrl ," I can toggle the visibility of all layers on/off. I can also click the eye of a group to toggle the group on/off if, initially, all layers are visible. The problem comes when I want to isolate and troubleshoot certain groups. If I use "Ctrl ," to toggle all layers off, I would like to then be able to click the eye of any group to show all the layers in that group; i.e., to turn that entire group back on. No can do. If all layers in the group are turn on, then clicking the eye for the group will toggle all layers in that group. However, if all layers in the group are off (after using Ctrl ,) then each layer in each group must be individually turned back on. Is there any setting that would return the visibility of all layers in a group by clicking the eye of the group?

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c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

I probably can’t quite follow your description.

If I alt-click one Group that does not affect the visibility of Layers in another Group, so alt-clicking that other Group works as expected for me.

Please post meaningful screenshots including the Layers Panel to clarify what you mean.

Doc_PitAuthor

Inspiring

I could have—and should have—asked this question far more simply and clearly. Question: Just as ctrl , toggles all layers in the document on/off, is there any shortcut that can toggle all layers (not just all visible layers) in a group on/off? If that sounds screwy, here’s the reasoning:

Consider two different actions:

1) Ctrl , will turn off the visibility of all layers in the document. Ctrl , again, will toggle visibility of all layers back on.

2) Clicking the eye of a layer group, will toggle on/off all visible layers within the group. So, for example, within a layer group, I may have seven layers, including three “trial layers” (three alternative versions of the same image component). I may want to see what the group looks like with any one of those trial layers visible while the other two alternative versions remain invisible. Clicking on the eye of the group, toggles on/off those five layers that I have chosen to make visible.

So, let’s say I want to focus on one or two groups. I first use ctrl , to toggle off the visibility of all layers in the document. If I now click the eye icon of a particular group, nothing happens because there are no visible layers within the group. Ctrl , has turned them all off. Instead of just clicking the eye for the group, I have to open the group and toggle-on the visibility of each layer individually.

It would be more convenient if I had a keyboard shortcut which, using my example, would make all seven layers visible. I would then turn-off the two I wanted to hide, rather than opening the group and having to individually reveal the five I want to see. Some groups have multiple layers, not just seven, so this becomes time consuming.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Trevor Morris used to have a show/hide all layers in his Dmonzon Tools panel. It was an incredibly useful panel, but sadly no longer worked after the switch to HTML5 with CC2014.2

Trevor does still have a lot of Photoshop scripts on his sight, and I think it would worth a hunt through them

Adobe Photoshop Scripts | Trevor Morris Photographics

Another thought is to look through the extensions on Adobe Exchange. I just had a quick look, and some of what I found still used Flash, so would not work with CC2014.2 and later versions.

Creative Cloud

You install CC2014 as a previous version so that you could use it with Dmonzon Tools, which would be inconvenient, but maybe worth the hassle if you have a lot to do.

We could ask Chuck Uebele if he has any ideas. Chuck is a demon scripter, and I use his Space Equal extension as a replacement for one of the Dmonzon Tool functions. I believe that c.p. — who initially responded to your post — is also into creating Photoshop scripts.

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