P: Multiple and reorder/sort effects/styles

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would love to be able to have 2 different drop shadows, inner shadows, gradients etc in a single layer. Very often I have to dupe the layer, put 0 fill and apply extra styles that way. It's inconvenient and messy, especially when trying to apply the same effect onto other layers.

Also, it would be great if I were able to sort the effects. Meaning, I could put drop shadow above or below inner shadow, stroke above the inner shadow and bevel, etc.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is really a no-brainer. This functionality should have been there from the start. Using 3rd party software and workarounds is a joke for a $700 program. I've ben waiting since Photoshop 7 for this.

Oh and +1 to it being a major P I T A ordeal to log on and post this reply!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@Chris Cox, @J453

It's encouraging that you guys have noticed our little thread and took the time to respond. Thanks!

I was wondering if you have any thoughts on my previous suggestion for how to do this in a way that is both backward compatible and with relatively simple code changes? The TLDR: Just have the software do what the community is already doing: duplicate the layer in order to stack up the effects in the desired order; BUT present those duplicated layers to the user as if they are just one original layer. The file structure remains unchanged, the layer effect code remains unchanged; only the UI is different.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

As Jeff already noted: there is no way to do this while maintaining perfect backward compatibility, and it is far from a simple code change. This request really is not as simple as it sounds from the user's side of things.

[ElliotEKJ]

I'd really like to see this happen as well. Hopefully you guys will figure out a way to do this at some point in the future.

[aartturi]

I understand that this might cause some problems with the compatibility of the older files etc. So Adobe cannot "just do it". They had to make plans.

Maybe this feature would be one that could be disabled and activated in the blending options. So if you wanna open your file with your old ps, you should use the old blending options for that. And if you don't need to open it ever in old ps, then you can activate the new features. Okay, now when i start thinking, this could also increase .PSD file sizes a bit and the whole .psd file needs to be changed. And what happens when you open it in After Effects etc?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

How will it affect opening older files? Nothing changes from older files. They just won't be able to open files created with latest version of PS, in older versions of PS - but that's already the case with several features and not a deciding factor for them.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

When creating an icon and sometimes even UI, I need multiple instances of the same effect.

A drop shadow for example - in order to achieve a more realistic shadow and depth, I need to add 2 drop shadows - one tighter and another one wider.

With gradients I sometimes combine a vertical and horizontal gradients to achieve volume and lighting.

With stokes, in some styles of logo / type you want to have multiple strokes.

I’ve needed duplicate instances of almost every effect and it would be great if Photoshop allowed this.

[JohnMazz]

It's interesting that Adobe Flash actually has exactly this functionality, and when I use Flash to create graphics, I have used the ability to reorder layer styles, and add multiple instances of the same type of layer style, to great effect!

As others have said, it would be very useful to specify whether a dropshadow starts at the object, or at the stroke around the object. Or if a gradient overlay effects just the object, or also effects the glow around the object.

Why is this considered difficult for Photoshop now, when Flash 8 launched their ability to do object filtering in 2005 with the ability to reorder and duplicate the equivalent of layer styles? You'd think this would come up in feature requests in the 9 years since Flash did it, or at least the 3 years that PS users have been asking for it in just this thread!

Granted, Flash's filters panel isn't perfect and limited in other ways, but can't we have the best of both worlds?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Flash deals with small, screen resolution documents.
When you try using those Flash features on large (digital camera, or print size) documents, the performance is too horrible to think about.

[daveinpublicity]

As far as compatibility goes, maybe they could save the file in a backward compatible way... until someone reorders the layer effects or duplicates a layer effect. Then save it the new way, and require the latest version of Photoshop to edit it. Kind of like the updates now, if someone uses a Photoshop feature from the latest release, you can't edit it unless you have the latest version.

I know you guys can tackle this!

And once you have the new system in place, you can start introducing more interesting layer styles, and allowing people do things like dotted lines, and transparency/masking effects, or whatever else.

[daveinpublicity]

The workaround that I use (and probably most of the Adobe Photoshop community) is to duplicate layers, turn down the fill, and add layer effects that way; and duplicate the layer again to add another layer effect if I want 2 drop shadows and outer glows or to show effects in a different order, and so on... I'm sure this is less efficient than having it coded into the program. I'll do this with huge files and resolutions. And as it is, it doesn't slow down my computer at all..

This feature has so much potential for Photoshop users, I hope the management can see the requests for this feature! Because, the end user would be very well served. Thanks for your time!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Adding more than 1 stroke to an object can be very handy and add depth to a design. Each stroke would have its own fill options. Adding a stroke offset would provide more of an outline effect, both inside and outside would be great. Also it would be great if you could add distortion (wave, etc) to a stroke (keeping it non-destructive). Everything should be moving toward less destructive methods and more dynamic.

[clicknsniff]

sometimes you want your layer effects organized a certain way and have to create multiple layers to pull it off. if it was possible to reorder layer effects then we could do it on 1 layer only. for example sometimes you want pattern overlay to be on top of stroke this way it gets affected too rather than the stroke going over the pattern. the order that the layer effects are in is ok for most situations but being able to reorder the effects would open up this feature for more creative styles and special case layer effects would be easier to create and copy. another benefit would be file size as each layer creates bigger files.

[donbarrum]

I think one of the most used feature in Photoshop is the layered effects. But they havent been updated for years! It would be great if there were some added features.

Examples of features:
-Stacking the effects order. Right now they are set in the order they are listen in the effects panel. But why cant you drag them in the order you like. F.example if I want inner glow above inner shadows I should be able to do that.

-stroke: Choosing hard or round edges. Right now outer stroke in photoshop always create round edges

-Stroke: the ability to stack strokes, so you can have multiple outlines.

-Adding multiple of the same effects on a layer. You should be able to add two dropshadows or whatever you want.

-New features, such as: cast soft/hard shadows (the typical modern design of today were a title has a long cast shadow in any direction). the current dropshadow is only a duplicate of the layer below in black. I would want proper cast shadow so you can emulate the effect of the text having depth.

-simple 3d sides, so you can fake depth and make the title or layer seem to have a depth

-radial/sunshaft glow

...etc

[jcorder123]

Would be most useful to be able to move around the order of the effects within the layer styles panel as well as add addition effects within the layer styles panel.

E.g. Be able to add an additional stroke for a double stroke look on logos or buttons. Or be able to move the pattern above the color overlay. Or have two patterns or 2 bevels.

[Kiloodorff]

Now that we have multiple instances (of some effects, not all, grr), we badly need to be able to reorder. Are you really telling me that what I have to do is write down all parameters and reenter them in order to swap 2 layer effect instances?

[Kiloodorff]

I'm not removing my previous post, since it isn't possible to reorder Layer Effect instances inside the actual Layer Effects window.

HOWEVER, it is possible to reorder individual effects from the Layers window. I had missed this. Hope that it might help someone out there.

[donbarrum]

I agree. I dont see why not make it possible to drag all the effect layers around as you feel like, now that features been made. I like that Adobe actually added some new abilities, but it feels a bit half heartedly implemented.

Effects needs to be reordered so you can have inner glow on top of inner shadow, etc...

Also a couple of new up to date effects would be nice too, like cast shadow, not just drop shadow, sunshafts, etc...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Multiple layer styles for several of the commonly requested types is implemented in Photoshop CC 2015.

[donbarrum]

Well, multiple layer styles is a great addition. What we asked was why you cannot move layer styles order, the same way you can reorder the multiple layers. Lets say you want inner shadow and inner glow. Right not the inner glow will be drawn "behind" the inner shadow. But if you would be able to reorder the layer order you could actually choose yourself what to be draw first. Makes sense?