Tutorial: No Fuss Saving, Loading, Re-Saving Layer Styles in Photoshop

Saving

Saving Styles is best done outside of the Photoshop program. New to you? The more you load into Photoshop the slower it goes, the more resources Photoshop needs from your computer to open and function properly… the more likely it is to crash unexpectedly too. If you don’t already have a method of storing scrapbooking materials make a  Design Folder on your main drive or better yet on a secondary drive dedicated to scrapbook graphics that can easily be backed up. The easier it is the more often you will back up your work if you have it all in the same place and the less tears you will shed when ( not saying “IF” ) your computer crashes.

Note for PC users…

Save your graphics and photos to a folder outside of “ MY Documents” Everything in My Documents is set to ALWAYS be loaded and ready to use. It drags your machine to a slow walk if all your goodies are stored there. Anything with “MY” in front of it is a subfolder of MY Documents. If you want your computer to be zippy fast…move big files like My videos, My Pictures, etc. out of My Documents.

In your Design Folder add a STYLES folder. Drop the zip files you download and/or the unzipped files into this file to keep all your Styles together. Its helps when you are navigating around to install. I like to download the zip file, unzip it and keep the original zip download with the extracted files. Just in case I save over something.

Loading: Two Fastest Ways

Fast Way One.

Open Photoshop.

Edit>Preset Manager>Styles>Load.

Navigate to where you save your Styles and double click the ASL file you want to load.

Note: The ASL file will not move into your photoshop program. Only a copy of it will. So you don’t have to remember to unload it, in fact you can delete the photoshop copy anytime. The original download will always be right where you left it on your hard-drive.

Fast Way Two.

Open Photoshop.

Open Window.

Click Styles.

Now your Layer Styles Window is open to the right of your screen.

Find the dropdown menu.

Find “Load Styles”

Navigate to where you save your Styles and choose the ASL file you want. Again only a copy goes to Photoshop so you can delete from the Styles menu when you are done.

Here is a quick You Tube Video by psddotco

http://youtu.be/kVTn90_ZRAo

Re-Saving.

You may make changes to a Style as you go along. You will have to SAVE the changes to your hard-drive for the effects to be permanent. 

Edit>Preset Manager>Styles.

Click the first Style you wish to save, hold down the shift key, click the last style you want to save.

All the Styles you wish to save are now highlighted.

Press “Save Set”

Navigate to where you wish to save these Styles for later.

Give a new name or new folder if you do NOT want to save over the existing set.