Three layer style tricks

I’ve been working with Photoshop for years, and this first trick I found completely by accident!

Moving Layer Styles

So let’s say that you want to apply a gradient to this lovely swash.

I used one of the Photoshop built in gradients and changed it to radial. Now let’s imagine that it’s perfect but that I want the center of the gradient to be in that little flowery bit on the right. With the layer styles open and that style selected, if you just move your cursor over your image, you’ll notice that your cursor changes. Click and drag and you can move that layer effect wherever you like.

This works with the pattern overlay, inner shadow, satin, even drop shadow.

Copying Layer Styles

Another trick you may or may not know is that if you have added styles to one of your layers and would like to use the same styles on other layers, just right click the layer name (or EFFECTS right under it) which has the styles applied. On the menu that opens, choose COPY LAYER STYLE, then click on the layer you’d like to apply those same effects to, right-click and select PASTE LAYER STYLE. You can also apply the styles to multiple layers at once, by shift or control-clicking to select multiple layers before right clicking and pasting. Note that this will replace any layer styles that may already be applied.

Resizing Layer Styles

You know how sometimes you’ll go to use a saved style and although it looked good on a large image, maybe it doesn’t look so great on a smaller one? Or vice versa? You can tweak the layer style size all at once! Apply the style, right-click on EFFECTS right under the layer – choose the very last choice, SCALE EFFECTS. Now you can use the slider or type in a number to increase or decrease the size of all the styles at once. Now if you copy and paste that style to another layer, it will be scaled the same. If you want to reset it, just put it back to 100%.