Photoshop Ninja
Expert Photoshop tips and tricks for designers and photographers since 2005
Photoshop Troubleshooting – Why can’t I move or re-order the background layer?
That pesky ‘background’ layer can cause a bit of trouble in Photoshop…
This is something that catches a-lot of Photoshop users out. You are getting used to using layers and think they are wonderful. Moving them around – re-ordering them to your hearts content! Then you do something on the ‘background’ layer and suddenly realise that you can’t move it… it won’t budge even in the layers palette, let alone moving it around you actual image canvas!!
It has a little ‘lock’ icon to the right of the name of the layer – you would have thought you could just ‘unlock’ it like any other layer… wrong! Photoshop treats the ‘background’ layer as special, meaning you can’t unlock it in the usual way.
The solution to this is as simple as double clicking on the layer – this will turn it into a ‘proper’ layer, meaning it can be moved, hidden and made transparent to your hearts content!
(6 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)
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Written by Jonny Allbut - freelance graphic designer
Last modified: 13 January, 2009 (16:43) | First published: 23 June, 2008
Filed under Photoshop Troubleshooting 3 Comments »
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Comment by Terri Powell
January 21, 2009 @ 8:47 pm
Hello
If you have all the layers locked can you unlock them?
Thank you.
Terri
Comment by Photoshop Ninja
January 22, 2009 @ 11:16 am
Hi Terry, I’m not sure if there is a keyboard shortcut for this, but if you shift+click to highlight multiple layers, you can go to the layers palette sub-menu (top right) and click on ‘lock layers’ – which will bring up a palette showing all the lock options – now simply untick ‘all’ and all the layers you had locked will be unlocked!
Comment by Marilyn
November 11, 2009 @ 12:16 am
Thanks!! You would not believe how long I spent trying to figure this out