Layer styles help please!

[rural]

I'm tearing my hair out here. I have a file, 300 pixels square, with layers for boxes and text. I copy/paste images, add layer styles, combine the lot and save (for a button type image).
That's how it used to happen with PS anyway. Now, I try to copy & paste an image, and the layer styles are way out. I change the resolution of the image, and it changes into a small square in the corner.
I have to say this is one thing I really dislike, that an image pasted into a new file doesn't take on the default resolution.
This is driving me nuts - it's a 5 second job that has taken me 3/4 of an hour so far and I'm still no closer. Am I missing something? I've tried changing the size and resolution before I copy and paste it, scaling it after I've pasted it. No matter what I do I can't get the layer style to match the previous versions, even though all the values are the same.
This is the "emboss inside" I'm having a problem with.

Edit, on the same subject, is there, or will there be, a "copy & paste layer style"?

[Hoogo]

Could you upload a zip containing the source and the destination image?

I've just made a test: I created 2 pictures, one 300*300, the other 600*600. Then I created a rectangle with inner emboss, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V in the other picture, and the new layer was the same as the old one. With lots more of free space around, though.

[bkh]

I have to say this is one thing I really dislike, that an image pasted into a new file doesn't take on the default resolution.

Not sure what you mean by "default resolution" – the resolution of the copied picture, or the resolution of the destination picture.

As far as I can see, if you paste a picture into PL, then its resolution is simply ignored, and one pixel in the copied picture corresponds to one pixel in the underlying document. (There seems to be an exception to this: in Document Mode, if you paste a picture that is larger than the document is automatically scaled down. Apparently, this doesn't happen in Picture Mode.)

One way to restore the original resolution would be to re-enter it in the "Layer properties …" or in the Attributes dialog.

This is driving me nuts - it's a 5 second job that has taken me 3/4 of an hour so far and I'm still no closer. Am I missing something? I've tried changing the size and resolution before I copy and paste it, scaling it after I've pasted it. No matter what I do I can't get the layer style to match the previous versions, even though all the values are the same.

In PL, layer styles are scaled in accordance with the layer. Maybe this is what causes you problems? In that case, a simple workaround is to create a group containing your layer, and to apply the layer style to the surrounding group instead of the layer. As long as you don't rescale the group but only the layer contained in it, the dimensions of the layer effect should remain unchanged.

Edit, on the same subject, is there, or will there be, a "copy & paste layer style"?

There is – in the context menu of the style "menu" at the top of the Layer style dialog.

Screen shot 2011-09-29 at 21.54.20 .png

Cheers

Burkhard.

[rural]

Thanks for your replies. I shall try to get my head round this tomorrow morning!