A question about layers

[AmerA]

I'm working on an illustration, and I would like to reduce the number of layers I have to work with, and I'm wondering if there is a way to "flatten" two or more layers together without flattening all of them. is there a pluggin out there that would let me do that?

[barbieq25]

On your layers window you can merge layers down. The icon looks like this:  :MergeLayerDown:  No plugin required

[AmerA]

Yes, but what I'd like to do is combine certain layers together into one layer, without combining all of them (flattening). I guess I could technically save the layers that I'm done with as an image and then upload that image as a single layer, it's just that I'd rather not do all that if there's a simpler way.

[barbieq25]

Sorry, what I meant was that you click on the layer that you would like to merge with the one below. So you could merge for example layer 22, 23, 24 and layers 57, 56, 58. You could also merge layer 24 with 57 if you moved them so that one is above the other. Just be aware that if the properties is changed e.g. opacity or blend mode, then it may not work. 

 

So you can merge as many layers as you need but they have to be below as you are merging down rather than flattening. Once the layers are merged, the only way you can unmerge is to undo everything to that point where you merged.

 

Hope this makes more sense now. 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

<Moved to paint.net Discussion & Questions>

[david.atwell]

Plugins can't do this sort of thing.  They can only do effects, adjustments and filetypes.  If the merge down function isn't what you're looking for, your backup solution of saving out the image would probably be the best.