First, make sure the move tool is selected. Once this is selected, look at the options bar on the left and make sure Auto Select Layers is selected. Then, choose the marquee tool and drag around the layers in the image, not in the layers palette. I hope this is what you are trying to do.
Do you mean place a marquee around all the pixels in several layers – CTRL+SHIFT on the Thumbnails in the layers Palette.
Unless you mean s’thing else…
thanks Wesley, you describe it exactly as I read it, and it does not work.
the marqee is set, and I drag around four thumbnails on image map ( which are 4 seperate layers), yet they do not become highlighted selected in the palette.
Scottie: I don’t know if this will help:
first create a new empty layer at the top of the stack. Then press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E to combine all the underlying layers into the new one.
Now you can use the marquee tool to select part of this "combination" layer – or indeed carry out any other edits which may be necessary – without losing the original individual layer information. The edits will only affect the new layer of course, but you always have the others to go back to if needs be.
Even if this isn’t what you meant in the OP, it’s a handy one to have in your armoury.
Happy pixel pushing!
Chris.
Scottie, Wesley, do not select the marquee tool: just select the move tool (*), make sure Auto Select Layers is selected, then, without changing tools, just drag over the layers you want to select in the image.
You can even go temporarily to the move tool while you are using another tool by holding down the CTRL key.
Hope this helps.
Of course, Chris’ method is a good alternative: always have the habit to work non destructively.
Thanks Pierre, you are absolutely correct. I don’t know why I added that extra little step. Also, Scottie and Stevent, you should be dragging around the layers on the image itself and not the Thumbnails in the layers palette. Is that what you are doing?
Ok, in move tool, with auto select on, PS grabs whichever layer I click on and moves it around, but does not do a "selection"– may have to give up on this one. (i’m on image, not layer palette)
Click and hold you’ll see some marching ants, and you do not need to encompass the whole opaque area of a layer, just "touch" an area with opaque pixels. (Of course, if you are trying on a fully opaque layer, you won’t go very far…)
The layers will be targeted (highlighted) in the layers palette. I personnaly do not like the term ‘selection’ , prefer ‘targetting’, as it could be confusing for newcomers.
Scottie, make sure you start dragging away from the opaque part of the layer and then drag over it. If you have the move tool selected and click on the opaque part of the image, it will move that layer.
Sorry, I’m going to have to get a quicktime movie on this……………….
Scottie, there is a video of this by Matt Kloskowski but it is on the NAPP website (Photshop user). I don’t know if you have to be a member or not but give this site a try.
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http://www.photoshopuser.com/>
Click on PSCS2 learning center, then
in PSCS2 feature, click on What’s new for you in CS2, then look for New Layers Palette.
thanks, I’ll look, I think I saw that. I’m member
Ok, saw video again. So created a new layer doc with few layers and it worked. But for some reason, on an older file I have that has like 30 layers it does not work on that file. That file has a background layers, then with lots of thumbnails layers, just does not work on that file for some reason — maybe because it was created long time ago?
Works ok here, just created a doc with 32 layers…
Pierre, thanks, just retried that, an still not working on this one file. On this one file, cursor just grab whatever layer is touches first and moves that one layer only. No marquee starts.
