Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with layers

Photoshop Question: is there a way to get a count of pixels contained within any (irregularly shaped) selection/layer?

unmake — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:20:29 -0800

Photoshop Question: is there a way to get a count of pixels contained within any (irregularly shaped) selection/layer? For example, is there something in Photoshop which, when I select a circle with a 10 pixel radius, will tell me that the area of the selection is ~314 pixels?

If not, are there any other applications for this task?

Photoshop-Shortcut Filter: How to toggle between layers w/out touching the mouse

alrightokay — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:40:12 -0800

Photoshop-Shortcut Filter: How to toggle between layers w/out touching the mouse - basically, I'm looking for and alt-tab option for layers within Photoshop. How can I toggle between the current layer selected and the previous layer selected? - kinda like alt-tab for layers within Photoshop. Google turned up a lot of results about shortcuts when within the layers palette but I'm looking for an alt-tab-simple shortcut.

I need to keep my mouse cursor in the same location on the image as I switch between layers - having to move from the image, to the layer palette is messing me up a bit.

Any Ideas?

Flattening Layers In PDF - How?

kartguy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:57:48 -0800

Do 3rd party PDF print drivers flatten layers? When printing a PDF from within Photoshop or Illustrator, do 3rd party PDF engines (PDFCreator or CutePDF or other) automatically flatten all the layers? If not, is there a setting in either 3rd party driver to do so?

Are layers really warmer?

white light — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 06:10:19 -0800

If layers are better for warmth (as I have been told as long as I can remember), why isn't there a blanket made out of a bunch of thin layers fastened together?

Multi-page PDF from multi-layered Illustrator CS2 file?

robbie01 — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 12:16:18 -0800

Is there a way, possibly via scripting, to export the top-level Layers of an Adobe Illustrator CS2 document as a multi-PAGE PDF? I understand that CS2 can save an Acrobat 6-compatible version of a PDF that Adobe Reader can see and activate/de-activate the LAYERS of, but I need to make it a multi-PAGE PDF, not a multi-LAYER PDF.

Currently my process is to Flatten Layers in Illustrator, export the single layer to a PDF (temporarily losing all my other Layers, which makes me nervous), then Undo the Flattening, activate the next layer I want, Flatten, export, Undo, repeat. Finally, I use Acrobat Professional 7 to Create a PDF from Multiple Files, and have it merge all the individual PDFs from Illustrator into a single PDF document.

It's very laborious and I don't like temporarily blowing away all my other layers until I can Undo them back.

Surely a magic script for this action is available somewhere? I'm pretty sure I've explored the features available natively in the apps themselves to try to achieve this.

Converting .PSDs to .PDFs while preserving layers

GhostintheMachine — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:35:49 -0800

Can I convert a multi-layer .psd to a multi-layer .pdf? I have created a multi-layer .psd file in PS7 (Mac) that I'd like someone who isn't very computer literate to open and view (clicking on and off the visible layers to their heart's content) on a PC. Acrobat 7 allows layers, but I only have Reader. I'm hoping someone with familiarity with either product line can tell me if this is possible. Can I do it with what I have now, and if so, how? Do I need to upgrade Photoshop? Or buy a particular version of Acrobat? Or is there some other way around this I'm not thinking of?

Layers in Powerpoint?

undertone — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:28:18 -0800

Is there a way to work with layers in Powerpoint, similar to Photoshop? I'm making slides with many graphics layered on top of each other (they will appear separately through animation). However, in order to fix or change a graphic on the bottom of the pile, I need to move all of the graphics on top of it off the page. Then they all need to be moved back. Sometimes they even like to reorder themselves. This is a real pain. I'd like to be able to make the top 5 graphics invisible while I work on the 6th, etc. Is there any way to do this?

Is there a way in Photoshop to open multiple images as layers in a single PSD?

kokogiak — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 14:28:12 -0800

Hopefully a simple question, but I can't think of a googly-good way to ask. Is there a way in Photoshop to open multiple images as layers in a single PSD? For instance, can I select 10 .jpg images and somehow magically make them into a stack of layers in one .psd file I'm working on? Right now, I'm doing this by hand (open file, select all, copy, paste into .psd, wish for a better way).

Is it possible to batch process layers in Photoshop?

niceness — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 06:20:08 -0800

Is it possible to batch process layers in Photoshop? I need each layer as a separate JPG.