Adjustment Layer Help

[EliStatham]

Hi, pleased to meet you all!

I'm pretty new to paintshop, and image editing software in general. All seems to be going well except for a problem I'm having with an adjustment layer.

So basically I've added a "curves" adjustment layer to blacken the buildings in picture z5. All is good until I either add another adjustment layer or merge all of the layers, I then get the result in picture z6. For some reason the buildings seem to get offset, but I'm not sure why.

It may be something simple, but I don't have a clue, so help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Eli

[hartpaul]

Hi Eli,
Thank you for your screen shots. They at least showed that you were working with X7.
Is that updated ? Help> About and check the version number, it should be 17.1.0.72 showing that is is fully updated.
I jyst tested with an image of a building, :
1. Duplicated
2. Used Adjust > Color > Channel Mixer to conver to black and white
3. Applied a Curves Adjustment layer and tweaked to make the shadows darker. (3 layers in total)
4. Layers > Merge > Merge all
No problem with any offsetting shown.
Can you test a simple situation like that and see if the problem occurs on that level.
If not then start to do the additional actions and do your merge after each one and see if you can locate which action is resulting in the displacement.
Soomeone else needs to be able to duplicate your problem to be able to suggest a fix or whether it is a bug.

[brucet]

I have x7 installed. Just opened a file. Added a Adjustment/Curves layer. Merged. No issues.
I tried the same with several other adjustment layers.
No issues.

I often use Adjustment layers and my only complain is lack of speed. I can't replicate your issue.

Have you got a Duplicate layer that may have moved out of alignment from the original? If so also check any Opacity settings. Just guessing but the only way I can see having an 'offset' is having another layer not lining up. Which may only become apparent when changing or merging layers. I see you have deleted the sky. My guess is that one of your layers has been moved.

regards

[trueblue]

Hi Eli,

You may get some help from this tutorial on Adjustment Layers. It is for X6 but will work in X7 okay too.

[EliStatham]

Hi, thanks for the replies, it's appreciated.

@ hartpaul, I downloaded the trial only a few days ago, but checked the version number anyway and it's up to date. So I did everything that you suggested in order, worked fine, so maybe there's some kind of corruption in my file. So I did everything again from scratch, same problem.

The part that I find confusing is that if everything is good and I merge the layers I get the offset, if I undo the changes, there is still the offset, so it does not get restored to the original. But if I double click on the adjustment layer or even the picture of the buildings, the offset is undone. I have found a solution to my problem though, if I merge down the adjustment layer with the picture, then the offset does not occur, although still a little irritating as I cannot make slight changes to this adjustment layer if needed later on.

@ brucet, There are no duplicate layers, and the opacity is fine. It's the reason it's so confusing, as there's only one building layer, an then the curves layer, which if either were to move would still not cause a shadow. I'm assuming that there is some kind of a bug with the software, or my computer,

@ trueblue, Thanks for the link, I'll have a good read through. I wonder why there is such a general lack of Info compared to photoshop, when this software is as capable and so much cheaper.