Apr 02, 2014

Layers in Photoshop are an important feature in all Photoshop designs as they enable the user to work on a particular element of the design without disrupting the other elements. It allows for a smoother workflow, and offers the user greater control and flexibility when designing. However, there are times when layers need to be merged together or flattened, but these two different functions are often used interchangeably despite being very different. Merging layers combines multiple layers that you choose into a single layer whereas flattening layers combines all the layers into one background layer, which decreases the overall file size. Below are some handy tips and tricks for merging layers without flattening that can be used in Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS6.

How to merge selected layers

1. Select the layers that you wish to merge.
2. Right click on any of the layers and choose ‘Merge Layers’ in the pop-up menu.
   

If you are merging all layers (both visible and invisible), you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+A to select all the layers, followed by Ctrl+E to merge all the layers. Notice that in the Layers panel, there’s now one merged layer and one background layer. If you had flattened this, all your layers would have turned into the background layer.

How to merge layers without flattening

What if you want a merged copy of those layers but don’t want Photoshop to flatten them? You can do that too, with one simple keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E. You’ll notice now that a new merged layer has appeared, but the original separate layers are still available below it. Note, that this shortcut will only merge the visible layers.