Photoshop - too many adjustment layers?

Stahlberg

What do you guys think of texture artists using redundant adjustment layers?  Like it, don't care, annoying but no help for it, or you use some clever rule or trick to avoid it?

For instance, a skin diffuse group: 

a flat base color, a texture layer, an AO layer, some "patches", then about 10 layer masks with Hue/Value/Saturation adjustments, and another 10 adjustment layers with further similar changes, most simply subtly going back and forth from darker red to lighter red to less yellow to more yellow etc. 

I can see why it happens, but not really how it's useful in a pipeline?  Actually I think it might slow work down, if another artist has to work on it later?  

Especially when there's more than 1 adjustment layer of the same kind - like curves - stacked on top of each other.   Maybe there's nothing to be done about it, because how would one go about flattening a few adjustment layers out of a whole stack?  

thomasp

yes, files setup like this get annoying to work with. even if they're your own creations it will be confusing. i tend to create these stacked adjustments initially when trying to find my foothold with the color range, then merge down whatever possible. sometimes that requires creating a flattened version of the end result and comparing against elements further down in the stack and adjusting these accordingly.

another pet peeve of mine is having flattened versions of the texture inserted in the middle of the stack somewhere and then another round of patches and adjustment layers on top of that...

gnoop

You can use smart objects and then just apply adjustments to them.  They would  construct its own sub-stack  beneath an  object that could be copied together with the host object or relinked to another one.   I found it's easier to manage than separate adjustment layers. 

 But in general  Photoshop is a pure mess, especially for texture composing from scanned materials.    Too bad there is nothing really convenient  to replace it and nobody try to do one.        Substance Designer  imo has  a lot of its own crazy super complicated approaches for things that should be done in two clicks.      

Eric Chadwick

I hate working in others' files set up like that too. A mess.

But also multiple adjustment layers tend to really reduce image quality a lot when working in 8 bits per channel. Yuck.

Edit: it's a lot like someone working in 3ds Max with a lot of modifiers in their stack. It's an unwieldy mess. Don't get all wishy-washy on me, commit to your edits!

thomasp

the difference is that we all know what happens in max when you have a lot of modifiers stacked... *click*
....
*BOOOM*

gnoop

Eric Chadwick said:

But also multiple adjustment layers tend to really reduce image quality a lot when working in 8 bits per channel. Yuck.

That's why I have to work in 16bit.  And Photoshop is slow as hell  in 16 bit , even with compression off.     I have a good hope on Affinity Photo and Design. They work in 16 bit a lot quicker, it's layer structure  is more advanced imo, but still lacks a lot of basic necessary tools for texture composing  , like layers transform linking.   

Stahlberg

I'll learn more about Smart Objects, thanks.  Adjustment layers reduce image quality, didn't know that, thanks, will look into that also

thomasp

adjustment layers reduce image quality by introducing banding just like any direct color-correct operation when used beyond a certain threshold. especially noticeable if you have low contrast and gradients in your texture and pump them up more than just a tad.

CreativeSheep

If the artist is stacking adjustment layers on-top of adjustment layers then the artist doesn't have a utilized workflow. Adjustment layers are powerful and beneficial I don't have issues with someone using them as long as; as mentioned they are not using them in a sloppy approach. 
Show me the Photoshop document and I'll inform you if you need to tell the Artist to get organized.