Setting a new PSD to open without a locked layer

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
August 18, 2022
3 replies
558 views

I want to open PSDs out of Raw with the background layer unlocked by default. I find it frustrating to have to unlock the layer each time since I usually crop and straighten the image immediately. There must be a way to do this but I just can't find it.

macOS

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JimLazAuthor

Inspiring

Thank you. That does eradicate the problem of destroying the image with the marquee tool. I often select, crop, straighten and sometimes try to return to the uncropped file only to find the selected edges cutout.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

Photoshop ships with a script "Open As Layer" which is part of the Script Events Manager which can automatically change the background layer for all documents that are opened into Photoshop. A modified version of the script is discussed in this topic:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/script-for-open-as-layer-without-file-extension/m-p/12594657

It is also possible to run the script from a keyboard shortcut so that when you open a file you can quickly manually run this step, just in case you find it annoying that every image has it's background layer automatically converted.

It would also be possible to automatically make a copy of the background layer for every image opened, or other variations.

Some extra conditional code would be needed to attempt to isolate images that were processed and opened through Adobe Camera Raw as opposed to a normal open process as the open event doesn't distinguish between the two.

JimLazAuthor

Inspiring

Thank you. What a fantastic tool. The duplicate layer action will be especially useful to me.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@JimLaz wrote:

Thank you. What a fantastic tool. The duplicate layer action will be especially useful to me.

Something like this?

A conditional action: if current document has layers do nothing, else play action dupe background:

The action automated from Script Events Manager:

Keep in mind that this would be triggered for ANY opened document that only had a flattened Background layer.

I forgot the mention, that if you open the camera raw file as a (smart) object, then it is automatically a layer and not a Background image layer (with all of the pros/cons of a smart object layer).

gener7

Community Expert

You may want to use the Crop Tool instead. It's much more flexible and non-destructive than the marquee tool for your purposes.

Uncheck "Delete Cropped Pixels" in the Crop Tool. It will create a floating layer, but the cropped pixels will be hidden instead of removed.

You can still straighten your image, but besides from keeping the floating layer, you can come back to your image if you change your mind.

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