Scale Effects

Now this is something that still seems to stump people in Photoshop when it come to Layer Styles. When you apply a layer style to a layer you notice that you can build multiple styles within one layer. That's great, but what if you drag that layer to a new document that is considerably larger or smaller in dimension and resolution. This can also be the case with preset layer styles a well.

Here I have some text that I have set over a space background and I want to apply a preset layer style here. Open the Styles panel and load the Web Styles presets. Locate the Blue Gel style and click on it. Chances are it doesn't look right. Why?

It's because when these styles were created, they were built on a different file size altogether. What we need to do is scale it down. Well, that would be easy if it was only one thing like a drop shadow. However this effect has five different styles applied and it would be a real headache to go into each one and modify the settings.

Instead, hold down the Command key {PC:Ctrl} or Right Click on the Fx icon on the layer. In the menu, got to the very bottom and select Scale Effects.

This will allow you to uniformly scale the effects quickly and easily. Simply enter a positive or negative value depending on whether you are scaling up or down. Click OK.

Voila!!! The styles are scaled properly and all is well.