What is the best way to regenerate a background layer in photoshop?

malcolm

So the only way I've found is flatten the image, anyone have a better way of getting the background layer back once it has been deleted?

Ryan Clark

In the menu bar,

Layer -> new -> Background from layer


The option only shows up if your image doesn't already have a background.

Tumerboy

why do you want a background layer? Deleting it is like the first thing I do in almost every new file I make! In fact I would prefer if I could make new docs start without one.

Ryan Clark

You can!

When creating a new document, just select "transparent" for your background contents. I think that setting is persistent, so you only need to do it once.

Tumerboy

I love you Ryan!

ETA: So, am I missing something? Is there something that the Background Layer is actually useful for? Because as far as I can tell, it's simply inferior to a normal layer.

kodde

It's locked for certain operations? Such as a normal move operation. What is this useful for? Not sure... maybe for people who constantly manage to move their background layer?

Okt

Ryan Clark wrote: »

You can!

When creating a new document, just select "transparent" for your background contents. I think that setting is persistent, so you only need to do it once.

I've wanted this for ever, I usually just do a whole | "ctrl + N" + [enter] | really quick and change dimensions after that so I never see the dialog.

Cheers!

Mark Dygert

WOO HOO! Much love to Ryan and Tumor! I had just grown accustomed to nuking it every time I created a file.

Background Layer BE GONE! Bother me no more!

Xenobond

Awesome!
I need a background layer if I need to save out a dds with alpha. Otherwise photoshop thinks I have an extra channel and won't save the bloody thing out.

Jeremy Lindstrom

Xenobond wrote: »

Awesome!
I need a background layer if I need to save out a dds with alpha. Otherwise photoshop thinks I have an extra channel and won't save the bloody thing out.

I've always just flatten image before saving for DDS.

Xenobond

But that is one extra step each time I want to save out as a dds. And when you're working with many many textures at a time, it adds up.

glib

I'd kill for someone to write me an extensible photoshop script that would work along the lines of what we had at my old job. Any layer named DIFFUSE (case sensitive) would automatically be saved as NAME_diffuse.dds, where NAME comes from the group that DIFFUSE is a member of (it throws an error if its not in a group). You could prefix DIFFUSE with a 0,1, or 8 for no alpha, 1-bit or 8-bit alpha channels. It got the alpha from the layer mask on DIFFUSE. This could be repeated for SPECULAR and NORMAL.

It was so nice to just have one photoshop fild for all your textures, and all you had to do was a quick copy-merged + paste in the right later, then click the action button I had assigned to run the script, and blamo, done.

I was told it was a real pain in the ass to create though, so I haven't looked into it. Photoshop scripting resources aren't exactly plentiful either.

Eric Chadwick

glib, check out PS-Scripts Forum.

Also, vTools, it saves TGAs automatically using group name conventions. Could probably be amended to save DDS.

We have a custom GUI app here at work that batch converts to DDS with various options, and saves the settings per src image, pretty helpful. It's designed to use the Nvidia batch converter, which is free. Down at the bottom of this page, I have an older doc that explains how to use the Nvidia batch tool. Really easy once you get the hang of it.

ivars

Tumerboy wrote:

Is there something that the Background Layer is actually useful for? Because as far as I can tell, it's simply inferior to a normal layer.

When downsizing an image without a bkg-layer, you'll end up with a bright outline (very noticeable on tiling textures) this dosen't happen with a bkg layer.

At least that's what I mainly use it for.

On the other hand I ususally make an action that duplicates, flattens (resize some times), saves with a proper name, and closes my file.

McGreed

Yeah, the resizing makes the edges of the images transparent, which is why it makes it 'bright', it wont happen if the image has been flatten to a background. Something I learned the hard way, when exporting stuff, had to redo a lot of work because I didn't test it. :P

glib

Thank you Eric! That vTools script was exactly what I was looking for! I've passed it on to a half dozen others today that have been equally as appreciative. Awesome find.

Michael Knubben

I've been telling people at work about Vtools, and nobody has yet offered their first-born child to me, as I expected them to. Unappreciative fuckers!

malcolm

Cool thanks for the help with the background layer regeneration.

g0th

McGreed wrote: »

Yeah, the resizing makes the edges of the images transparent, which is why it makes it 'bright', it wont happen if the image has been flatten to a background. Something I learned the hard way, when exporting stuff, had to redo a lot of work because I didn't test it. :P

Wow... that explains a lot of the seams in some of my tiling textures! Thanks a lot.

Michael Knubben

I don't get why you're all so eager to throw it out, anyway. If anyone could explain some benefits of having a transparent background instead of just a black bg layer, let me know. Besides exporting to formats that use it for transparency instead of the alpha, ofcourse