The (Mac)keyboard shortcut to make a copy of a selection when not in the move tool is: command-option-drag selection. That's all good! But this same keyboard shortcut should NOT duplicate fully locked layers. A locked layer should really be locked (like Illustrator) or else there should be a preference to make it so, please. thanks.
My problem's quite simple. I'm in a fast paced work environment designing decor. I often have to duplicate masked branch-like objects and the fastest way to do it is alt dragging the object in the document window. 90% of the time this will grab the locked background layer and duplicate it instead. Sure I could go into the layers panel and do this, but there are sometimes hundreds of layers over there. Can we please have a preference option to turn this mostly useless feature off?
Having to click into the layers panel to select your layer defeats the purpose of having a shortcut to Alt-Drag, which is the issue we're discussing. Otherwise, I'd simply click into the layers panel and duplicate the layer I want duplicated. When you have 40+ layers, being able to Auto-Select Layer and then Alt-Drag to duplicate is a gamechanger.
Regardless, it's still completely ridiculous and counterintuitive that a position-locked layer can be selected and duplicated!!
Still big problem, can' t use locked top layer for orientation and work beneath because locked layer also duplicates whenever I want to duplicate beneath layer...
I have an issue when I alt + drag elements on my screen to quickly duplicate them. If there is a locked layer above what I want to select (auto-select is on) it will duplicate the locked layer instead of the element I have selected. I use auto-select and alt+drag to make my workflow faster, and I see no real reason to be able to duplicate layers that were previously locked. Unless someone has a very good reason for doing this, I think it's a minor technical fix that would make more sense.
when I have text hovering over locked layer and i'm trying to duplicate using ctrl drag on the text, it grabs the locked layer and copies it instead, this bug was there for forever. attached is screen recording.
COMPLETELY AGREE. I lock my layers to keep them visible but prevent myself from accidentally modifying them. Making option+drag work on locked layers disrupts messes me up every time.
I'd suffered from this since ever. One possible solution (only tested on Windows so far): 1) select the object layer; 2) use the right ALT (right option in mac, maybe?) key to drag.
Is not perfect, but prevents some annoyng additional moves.
I tried this on CS5 and it doesn't work. Behavior with Right ALT is same as Left ... if you're hovering on a locked layer when you do it, the locked layer duplicates. Anyone else get this to work?
are you sure? I mean: 1) Click on the layer you want to duplicate; 2) then hold right alt e click and drag (not necessarily in the object,, could be in any place of the canvas). I attached a video. Im using Photoshop 2020, so maybe it could be a version issue.
I often duplicate layers by selecting the move tool and then CTRL+ALT+ Left clicking on the layer in the canvas, to drag a new copy. I noticed that this also affects locked layers, which I found to be annoying. I sometimes use a locked layer with reduced opacity that's on top of all the other layers as reference, and when using the aforementioned method, this selects and duplicates this locked layer. Is this intentional behavior? I'd expect the locked state of a layer to mean that there's no interaction possible on the canvas with this layer, only in the layer window.
I heavily agree that this is how it should work. I'm having the same issue but with a layer under the layers I'm trying to alt+drag. The shapes I'm dealing with are rather small, so instead of selecting the layer I need it to select, it instead will grab the background and duplicate it instead quite often, which is very annoying.
Your analogy is dumb and wrong... jeez... A picture of a house is not the same thing as a locked house...By your logic you have a house and a picture of a house when in reality you should have 2 houses...
52
Replies
AdChoices
