Why can't I individually edit one of my artboards???

[Pixel Lake]

Hi everyone! I'm new to photoshop and couldn't find an answer for this via YouTube/Google.. 

I've created 5 artboards to create some style frames. When I tried adding a purple background to Artboard 4, the background layer seems to expand to incorporate all of the other artboards. The blue bounding box in the photo is actually the purple background. It looks to me that I added the BG layer properly to Artboard 4 but PS seems to be expanding the layer to the other artboards within the selection. Any ideas how I can go about individually editing these artboards? Thank you!! 

[S_Gans]

Hi. This does look odd - but may I ask, how did you add your purple layer?
In Artboard, if you click a particular layer, it should come up with the color picker. To add a layer within an artboard, you'd want to focus on the layer portion of the artboard, and then add your layer (which will come up above it, the size of your artboard). So, knowing your steps will help us to determine what went so wonky here...

[Pixel Lake]

Thank you for responding S_Gans! I created the background layer by using the shortcut Option/Delete. I just saw there was an update available for PS but this update didn't fix the problem. 

My steps were as follows:
1. Create new project (1920x1080) and select Artboards box.

2. I clicked on the edge of the first artboard to access the plus-sign symbols on the 4 sides of the first artboard.

3. I then clicked the plus-sign symbols to add the 3 extra artboards to create this 2x2 artobard grid.

4. I then highlighted Artboard 4, hit shift/command/N to create a new layer, highlighted the new layer, and hit Option/delete. 

This is when the issue started with the background layer being over-sized.

I just noticed that the Purple Layer Transform units are in inches (the layer is huge), but my artboards are in pixels. Could the different measurement units have something to do with it?

[S_Gans]

I am SO SO sorry for the delay. I had lots of business to attend to, and then Adobe MAX. I wonder, did you find an answer? 

For me, when I try what you did, it works exactly the same way - but all my measurements remain in px measurements. 

The only resolution I found, is to resize each layer down - they DO fit each artboard when I do that, making each artboard have it's own background layer, made to size. It's annoying, but I had to resize each one, individually...

Perhaps an option to constrain new layers to fit artboards would be helpful to a lot of people. 
May I suggest adding it to the Ideas section at the top of the Photoshop Ecosystem community?

[Pixel Lake]

Thanks so much for getting back! No worries - Since I'm a newbie in PS, I started working without Artboards and so far so good! I haven't run into the need of using Artboards and don't really know the significance of using them right now. But as of now I think I prefer the simplicity without them.

[Stephen Marsh]

Welcome to Artboards in Photoshop! :]

I'll post more when I have time...

[Pixel Lake]

Thank you Steven! Still banging my head on the wall here 😉

[Stephen Marsh]

@Pixel Lake 

Photoshop can only have 1 canvas.

Artboards are effectively "multiple canvases" in a single canvas system. They are like a "window" or mask showing a certain area of the canvas "in isolation". They are a special type of layer group/set.

If I create a new doc at 500x1000px, the canvas is 500x1000px.

Convert this to an artboard at 500x1000px and the artboard and canvas is still 500x1000px.

Duplicate the artboard, the canvas is now 1500x1000px.

The two artboards are next to each other horizontally with a 100px default space between them. So in theory the new extended canvas should only be a minimum of 1100x1000px.

I don't know why it is 1500px.

I'm not a big fan of them. :]

[Pixel Lake]

Thanks for getting back to me Stephen! Yes - that 1500px math doesn't make sense to me either. I went this route with the artboards because I'm starting to create style frames and thought this would be the best way but perhaps there's a more straightforward way 🙂