adjustment layer threshhold effect lost when layers are merged/flattened

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Posted By
Phosphor
Sep 27, 2003
Views
686
Replies
6
Status
Closed
elements 1.0
Cleaning up an image of a line drawing with a lightly colored background. Removed the color, background is light grey.
Created an adjustment layer, used threshold to cleanly remove the background, as seen on the monitor. Whenever I attempt to flatten or merge the layers, the threshold effect is lost and the image reverts to the line drawing on grey background.
What am I doing/not doing?

rpower9i5
Related Tags
adjust effect flatten layer merge

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Phosphor
Sep 27, 2003
What image format are you working in?
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Phosphor
Sep 27, 2003
Beth Haney,
Thanks for your quick response.
From my scanner I have JPEG format, and after massaging it in PE1 it is PSD, PDD.
CS
Chuck Snyder
Sep 27, 2003
Robert, I believe that’s happening because the merged layer you create is a background layer, which, as its name implies, always has background color as its base. Are you trying to create a transparency? You might try double-clicking on and renaming the background layer in the layers palette before adding the adjustment layer; that will make it a normal layer, with the ability to retain transparency if saved as a GIF or other transparency-permitting format (not JPG).

Chuck
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Phosphor
Sep 27, 2003
Chuck, thank you for the suggestion.
First, I want to clean up my faulty description of my problem. I used ?background? carelessly. My paper image original was a black-line drawing on a light blue-green shading (background). This was scanned and saved as JPG format. In PE1 its format was PSD, and when saved defaulted to Adobe Photoshop Image. In PE1 the lines and blue-green were in a single layer, Background. I created an adjustment threshold layer which cleanly removed the b-g shading, but I could not print or save the clean line drawing. So far, whenever I print from PE1 or merge/flatten the shading returns. Same when I save.

I tried renaming the Background, linking it to the adjustment layer, and inserting a new, transparent background. No good. Same when I filled the background with white.

I also changed the sequence: rename background, insert new transparent background, create adjustment/threshhold layer, … No Good. Help!
CS
Chuck Snyder
Sep 27, 2003
Robert – You might want to try this variation.

1. Open your image with the line drawing and blue-green shading.
2. Make sure the color picker defaults are black foreground and white
background (default).
3. Add your threshold adjustment layer as before; adjust the slider to get all the line drawing segments visible as black.
4. Still pointing at the adjustment layer, use the magic wand tool with contiguous unchecked and select the white areas of your image – you should have the marching ants displayed which indicate a selection is active
5. Turn off visibility of the threshold adjustment layer and move to the
background layer in the layers palette. Your selection should still be active.
6. While on the background layer with the selection active, do an Edit<Clear. That should eliminate the blue-green and replace it with white.
7. Go back to the Threshold adjustment layer and drag it to the trash can
symbol. You don’t need it anymore.
8. Print the image!

Chuck
"robert buel power" wrote in message
Chuck, thank you for the suggestion.
First, I want to clean up my faulty description of my problem. I used
?background? carelessly. My paper image original was a black-line drawing on a light blue-green shading (background). This was scanned and saved as JPG format. In PE1 its format was PSD, and when saved defaulted to Adobe Photoshop Image. In PE1 the lines and blue-green were in a single layer, Background. I created an adjustment threshold layer which cleanly removed the b-g shading, but I could not print or save the clean line drawing. So far, whenever I print from PE1 or merge/flatten the shading returns. Same when I save.
I tried renaming the Background, linking it to the adjustment layer, and
inserting a new, transparent background. No good. Same when I filled the background with white.
I also changed the sequence: rename background, insert new transparent
background, create adjustment/threshhold layer, … No Good. Help!
P
Phosphor
Sep 27, 2003
Chuck,
Thank you so much. I’m not able to try it for a few days, probably. I’ll report in a week or so.

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