If, like me, you have been frustrated with Photoshop’s annoying little habit of appending “copy” to the end of every layer or layer group you duplicate then you will be pleased to know that you can now turn it of in CS5 and CS4.
If you happen to find this feature useful, essential or just plain don’t care then feel free to scroll through my other blog posts while you’re here :grin:.
Sometimes it’s amazing how the little things can be such a pain to deal with, either constantly renaming layers or putting up with nasty little “copy” tags all over the place became very annoying.
So one of the first things I did when running up Photoshop CS5 was to attempt to turn off this somewhat annoying feature (which is still enabled by default).
I searched the preferences screens multiple times, reading each page more and more carefully but to no avail. Damn you Adobe, you just couldn’t make it easy could you π₯
Anyway, I eventually found it nestled in the Layers Panel drop down menu. Maybe CS6 will manage to consolidate all the programs options into one central located, we can only hope π
The Solution (CS5)
- Click on the dropdown menu to the right of the Layers Panel
- Select Panel Options near the bottom and you’ll get the “Layers Panel Options” window up (see right)
- Look at the bottom of the “Layers Panel Options” window to see where Adobe have hidden this little treasure
- Titled “Add ‘copy’ to Copied Layers and Groups” the new checkbox will default to ticked, simply untick it to enable one of the most powerful changes in Photoshop CS5 π
Now don’t get me started on their inconsistent use of the undo command across all of the various utilities and functions, maybe we’ll have to wait for CS9 to fix that one …
The Solution (CS4)
It has been pointed out to me that John Nack has posted information about a fix for this problem in Photoshop CS4. Click here to read John’s post
You just saved me about 3 hours. Thank you, sir.
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You’re welcome Mike π
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Nice! I never managed to dig that far before. Thank you. I wish i didn’t have to read all the way to the 5th paragraph before getting the payoff of the article title, but it was worth it. π
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Hi Jack, glad you found the information helpful and thanks for the feedback π
Too late to help you but I’ve restructured the solution part of the post to make it easier to skip to.
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is there a solution to this in cs4? just wondering…
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Hi Ine, thanks for dropping by.
Sadly, the answer to you question is no as far as I’m aware π¦
I spent years searching and waiting for a solution to this simple problems and CS5 was the first time I found an answer.
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Thanks, man!
This is helpful indeed! Sort of a “bug fix” I’ld say π
I would never have guessed before that one could even come up with the idea to create an extra panel options menu inside of the layers panel options… π
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this is a boon. i wonder who uses the copy suffix thing in PS.
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THERE IS a way to delete “copy” from layers in Photoshop CS4, but it’s not native. You can download an extension that removes copy from layers. I found it via the folks at Viget Labs:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/12/new_panel_scripts_let_you_batch_eliminate.html
Very glad to see Adobe built this into CS5!
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Thanks for pointing that out Erik, I’ll update the post with a link to Jack’s post π
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Odd thing, i tried this on CS5 Mac and this window pops up. That’s it. https://skitch.com/dimsum/rm8pe/merlin-lives
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Hi Dimos, sorry it took me a while to reply to your post but I think I know what is happening.
You’ve found what they call an “Easter Egg” (or hidden message) in Photoshop which was left there by the developers.
To trigger this “Easter Egg” you hold down the Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) key while following the instructions I have described above and the “Merlin Lives” window will appear.
I can only assume that you are holding down the Option key or your Option key is somehow stuck down without you knowing it.
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Thank you soooo much! I found this very helpful!
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Hi Eminopee, glad the tip was useful to you π
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It’s been a while ago since I tried to figure it out, how to turn this off. You just made my day, Dave!!! π Thanx for the tip, very helpful !!!
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You’re welcome Andreas π
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A very enthusiastic THANK YOU! Man, I’ve hated this thing for so long…
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very nicely done!
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my life just changed with this post.
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Hi fyza, isn’t it funny how the little things can make such a big difference π
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is there a way to do it for cs3?
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Hi Webmediatoronto, as far as I’m aware this was new functionality added for CS4.
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Thank you for the great post and site. I have a question for you. Whenever I go to transform an image it creates a new layer for that transform. ( or resize whatever I try to manipulate that layer or image)
I am not a power user and don’t like having to go back and delete the original layer. Can I turn off the create duplicate layer function?
Thanks again for the great info you have here.
Sean
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Thanks Sean and welcome to my blog π
I’m not sure why you are getting a new layer when you do a transformation. Exactly what operations are you doing that give you a duplicate layer?
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Holy Cow! Those ‘Copy’ suffixes have been makin’ me crazy for Years! You’re the best for posting that!
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You are a wonderful person continue the good work!!!!!!
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Never noticed that option ever exists there! Thanks a lot for the tip π
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Legend. Thank you π
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You’re welcome π
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Thank u . u save my life brother
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is there a solution for cs6?
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Hi Jon, the same solution still works in Photoshop CS6 & CC 2014 as documented above for CS5 π
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I love you. Thanks for this tip. Didn’t think it would be so easy.
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Your welcome π
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Thanks for the hot tip!
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Hi John, glad it helped π
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OMG! Thank you! Thank you SO MUCH!!!
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You’re welcome Diego π
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Man, I just wanna’ say thank you π
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Happy to be of help π
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Almost seven years later… still finding this incredibly helpful. Thanks!
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You’re welcome Alex, glad you found it helpful π
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Hi, along these same lines, do you know how to stop Photoshop from adding sequential numbers to the end of adjustment layers? That drives me crazy as well and I cannot figure out how to turn that one off!
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Hi bob555, unfortunately I am not aware of any way to do this at present.
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You are a lifesaver. I was getting so frustrated when someone linked this post on the forum where I was looking for. Totally saved my day! only mad at myself I didn’t look it up sooner π
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Happy to hear it helped Road Runner π
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