Layer Styles Glitch in Candy Cane Video Application

[ATR]

When moving candy cane (made as per video) into a photo (.jpg file), the Bevels Layer Style shifted. Lighting angle went from 120 to 30. This did not happen if the move was being made into a greeting card (.psd file) made from new blank file with this same photo included.

After a lot of experimentation, I discovered that I could eliminate this unwanted Bevels shift in the photo by either of the following: (1) Simplify the Candy Cane layer before the move OR (2) uncheck Use Global Lighting in Styles Setting Dialog Box before the move. If I did neither, I could always uncheck Use Global Lighting OR change the lighting angle after the move.

Because of what appeared to be varied solutions to this problem, I was curious about the "whys" behind the happening and would appreciate any comments in this regard.

Thank you for your comments.

ATR

[Wendy]

Hi there ...

I usually make something like this and then save it with a transparent background into my "Montage items folder". Then when I want to use it in another image I do Select>All, Edit>Copy Merged then open the new image and do Edit>Paste. That stops any shifting of the lighting effect.

The reason it happens (the way you did it) is that something else in your new image was using global lighting and it was set at a different angle .. ticking the use global lighting box ensure that the light is shown as coming from the same direction through all the styles used in the image. So shadows always fall in the same direction ... it works well for most things but not for something like this ... as it picks up lighting angles that you don't want.

Both ways work as unticking global lighting means the effect doesn't change when it goes into the new image and rasterizing just flattens the effect. Copy merged does a similar thing.

Hope this helps :)


Wendy