Solid color layers and resizing canvad problem

Farel

Hello dear Photoshop forum, I am a new user and I come with a problem:

I'm a comic artist, I often use a black solid color fill layer for the lineart and then I use color fill layers for the colors underneath and then i use similar but lighter/darker colors that i add as clipping image to the main color to create shading
http://farel13.deviantart.com/art/Vertumnus-of-the-Death-Arcana-121857280

It saves a lot of memory space this way since every single pixel has the same hue, saturation and brightness, only factor for every pixel is the transparency, however there is ONE BIG DISADVANTAGE of these layers...

When I resize not the whole image, but the canvas... like add 50 pixels of length... the color layers are automatically white in the newly added area... I can't imagine that EVER being useful... unless i'd be using a layer like that with 100% white/visible or if I'd use it as a frame or something, but fixing things from the expanded area being black/transparent would be much easier and less time consuming!

Is there any way at all to make the expanded area be black??? When using canvas size I picked White and Black but those only affect the background color...

Some people tell me to use layer masks, but then I'd have to be sure the color is finished.... and no blurry or half transparent things would be possible...

Is there any way to solve this problem? ... I heard people make custom plugins for photoshop, could i create one that causes that the expended area is always black/invisible?

PLEASE HELP ME Confused

I'm so tired of selecting the new are and cleaning it off every new layer....

thehermit · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:28 am Post subject:

I think I read you right, not totally sure mind, so here goes nothing.

On the layer (I guess the background) that you have increased the canvas. Alt+Backspace to fill the canvas with your foreground colour, Ctrl+Backspace to fill with your background colour.

Not sure if in your post you indicate that; anyway, as always a piccie would help if possible.

Farel · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 9:56 am Post subject:

thanks hermit but i dont think you understood me perfectly.... maybe you did but just in case i prepapared a screenshot presentation..........

http://i42.tinypic.com/2ds3fh5.jpg

WARNING... I don't know what's wrong with me today, I make so many typos.... in the screenshot it's meant to say "NOTE that I can't select THE canvas extension color, SINCE I've deleted the background LAYER"

if it were possible id select all fill layers and id just invert them all and once the resizing would be done, but sadly no adjuments can be done to multiple layers at once.....

hawkeye · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 10:10 am Post subject:

When you increase the canvas size, it increases it on all the layers.
Look at your layer masks, they too are increased in size, and the increased canvas area isn't masked off.
Therefore the solid color is exposed on the new mask area.

Farel · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 12:08 pm Post subject:

Yes, but I don't want it to expose... photoshop doesn't seem to ask nor give me any option......... when i expand the canvas... I ALWAYS want the masks of the fill layers to increase too, but ..... ugh im confused by the terms...

Photoshop always expands the masks and makes them white... visible in the expanded area... I NEVER want that... I always want it to expand as empty.... black... invisible....... if I want to add something there... I shall! But at best it'll be on one of these layers, not ALL of them! I don't need 250 x 1000 of the color orange! It's just the color for the eyes of the character!

I find it so annoying, I know I could take the time and resize it, but I'm just ahead of making a project where i'll be making a wallpaper and to make it fool proof for any resolution, I'd prefer to increase the height of the image rather than resize the picture and hence bring upon some mistakes .... especially if it was more of a change in one direction like 1024 x 768 -> 1280 x 800 ... that's far more horizontal.... and id be changing it constantly....

Or how about when i duplicate a layer to another artwork of a totally different resolution?!?!

I'm just sick and tired of it.... it could ONLY be useful if i was planning to have the fill layer be 100% filled from the start or serve as a frame, but in any other case it's a BAD solution.... I really would like to know if there's any way to make the expanded area be black/invisible/transparent/inactive/not-there .... Seriously I'm sick of doing it... or should I just rasterize all my layers and just buy a better hd?

hawkeye · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:47 pm Post subject:

When you increase the canvas, you increase everything including the masks since a mask covers the entire canvas. I honestly can't think of why it should work otherwise.

I guess I'd have to question your workflow. Why are you making the canvas larger after editing? Why not just start with the proper size?

But...If you flatten the image and then increase the canvas size you won't have the problem. If you want to save it unflattened for future editing, just make a copy of the current state and flatten that copy.

Farel · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 2:05 pm Post subject:

i had to re-edit a finished image... I just............

AAhhh I'm sorry, I guess it's hopeless.... but I swear there should be a choice !!!!!!!!
I never need it to show up when resizing! I was hoping there'd be any way to solve it........ even if it was some plug in or something...... would it be that hard to change the value? I mean.... is that some DEFAULT VALUE? The fill layer is always colored when you create it, maybe that's why increasing the canvas leaves colored space

hawkeye · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:22 pm Post subject:

Put all the masked layers into a group folder, then add a layer mask to the folder. Now you can mask all of them at once.

thehermit · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 5:00 pm Post subject:

The new canvas area is added to the current background colour. It will be transparent if there is no background layer. Basically, it will be the colour of your background if you have one and transparent if you don't. I think I am right on that. Are we tying ourselves in knots?

Farel · Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2010 2:24 am Post subject:

http://i41.tinypic.com/30mwjg6.jpg

Left side is for TheHermit
And left side for Hawkeye's solution

Thanks Hawkeye, your awesome really! this solves the problem!

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