Good news: there is a way
Bad news: it’s a very wacky way
Here goes:
Make a new document, open the Actions panel and create a new Action. Add a layer to the image, go to Layer->Layer Style->Global Light and set the options you want and then hit Delete to delete the layer that you just created and stop recording. You need to create that new blank layer because you can’t change the Global Light option if the image has only a background layer.
Go to File->Scripts->Script Events Manager and select "Enable Events to Run Scripts/Actions". In the Photoshop Event section select Open Document then select the Action radio button and select the action you just created and click Add. Next step, Select New Document from the Photoshop Event list and click Add.
That’s it, new whenever you open or create a new document you’ll have the desired global lighting
Thanks for the tip but, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work for existing files. Having said that, you made me investigate more and it does appear to be remembered as part of a recorded action, even though it doesn’t save the setting as a style.
Bizarre!
Of course, nothing Adobe does should surprise anyone; spend £1500 on their software and have to trawl through the slowest, most disorganised website in history to find a little help. Anyway, thank you sincerely for your time and consideration.
just wait in a few weeks it will be worse.
Peter,
The reason that Zeno’s script didn’t affect existing files is because it only activates when a new document is created (assuming you followed his instructions to the letter and selected "New Document" from the event list). Select "Open Document" from the event list and it should work. An alternative would be to assign a keyboard shortcut to the Action you created and just use that anytime you want to reset the default.
Also, is Global Light functionality even important to you to preserve? If not:
If you just want to always create a style with the same angle all the time and don’t care about Global Light functionality in the future, just create a Style Preset with Global Light unchecked. This will always create the layer style with the angle you desire within both new and existing documents.
The problem will be that in the future is if you want to change the angle of multiple layer styles in the same document, you will not be able to just change Global Light and automatically impact all the layer styles. A work-around in this case would be to create a new style preset with the new angle, select all the layers you want to change, and then apply the new preset.
Ha. Forget all the above. Here is what you need to do:
Open Photoshop.
Close all open documents.
Do Layer>Layer Styles>Global Light (yes, believe it or not, it’s available). Set the angle to what you want to be the default.
From now on, new documents will automatically use the new default.
This will not change the Global Light angle on EXISTING documents but for those all you need to do is Layer>Layer Styles>Global Light to change them. If you have many existing documents that you want to change, then create an Action and apply it using File>Automate>Batch. As I mentioned earlier, you might also find it handy to assign a keyboard shortcut to that action and then quickly apply it anytime you need to reset the Global Light to your preferred setting.
Wow. Google is a wonderful thing. 🙂
