Discarding layers after cropping

[cornfed]

I maintain several huge map files. I'm pretty sure they each have over 200 layers. I know that seems ridiculous, but this is something I came up with to help be more efficient. It's a very organized file with all layers being in alphabetical order and also grouped according to street name, retailer, restaurants and traffic. We previously had 4 separate maps to show these facts on but doing those over and over and over for every client seemed really inefficient. So I consolidated the data and information into one map for each city. It illustrates retailers, traffic, restaurants and street names over the span of 100-800 square miles in each one. I've completed these for just about every city with over 50,000 people in Louisiana. I've invested an incredible amount of time into these.

I never really need the entirety of the maps. It just speeds up my workflow to have one big map that I can pull into InDesign and move around my content box to the location that I need. I generally use the flattened version of the maps for this purpose.

Sometimes, I need to edit a portion of the map in photoshop. For example, if I'm working on a map that I need to see some land on but I have a retailers logo over that piece of land, then I'll need to go find that layer and move the retailers name to a different spot. This is pretty easy because the layers are so organized. My problem is that after I've cropped my file during these edits, I can't figure out how to delete the layers that are technically still turned on but are no longer on the image. It's different than "Discard Hidden Layers" because the layers aren't hidden.

Anybody know how to discard layers that are turned on but cropped out?

[Cosmo]

Select the layer and drag it to the trash?

[cornfed]

That would be practical if there weren't so many layers. For example, I have about 15 McDonalds logos on one map. When I crop, I'm only left with 3. That means that on my very large file, I have to go figure out which McDonalds layers to delete and which ones to keep. Cross apply that to every retailer and restaurant spanning that large of an area and it becomes a situation.

My work around so far has been to flatten the file before I use it, but sometimes I need it to still be layered after cropping.

[kemingMatters]

Would it be feasible to turn off the layers you can see, then "Flatten Visible" and wipe the new "Background" layer? Then it's just a matter of turning on the remaining layers.

[BJMRamage]

there is a script in Photoshop to delete empty layers. this means if the PSD has been cropped and a part of a layer that had an image on it was out of bounds, it is considered empty.

File >> Scripts >> Delete all Empty Layers

I just tried this out with an image and moved items off the "pasteboard" and selected a portion, CROPPED and then used that script and it worked for me...

This is Photoshop CS5

[cornfed]

That's an interesting idea, but it still leaves me having to go dig for a lot of layers. Below is one intersection - about 3 square miles there. It's over 32 layers just on that one intersection. I have it set up this way so when a business moves, closes, opens, etc. I can drop their logo on there and know it will automatically update on all my indesign files. I'd have to go find those 32 layers, which are categorized into different groups, then sift through the groups and turn everything off except my 32. It's not a big deal on MSA's with under about 50,000 people because they're smaller communities with likely just a few businesses of each, but the larger MSA's can be more difficult than I'd like. But again, it's only a problem when I have to crop and edit to show a different layout than my base map but that's happened several times this week. I don't know that there's a way to do what I'm after.

I've worked around it so far but am pretty hard core on efficiency. It's not efficient to have a jpeg version, a pdf and a psd then make one change and have to go through that all over again. I'd prefer to work off my psd but the 100's of layers that aren't shown make my file size huge.

[cornfed]

Yay BJM, thanks a heap! That's just what I'm after!

[BJMRamage]

Glad I could help!

hopefully this works beautifully for you.

[BJMRamage]

that looks like a map I saw around here when they were putting in a new strip mall type place. They took all the competitive places and labeled on a map, similar to this.

[Drazan]

oooh! handy tip.

I learned something new.