Here is a mystery -- to me -- that I have tried to solve and would like some help doing so. When I use a blending effect such as overlay or soft light -- which is what I originally used for the group's shadow and it worked much better -- once I merge layers, it gets multiplied to even more than the normal mode would be. I've tried making an empty layer below the layer with the blend fx and merging those with the same result. It only turns out OK when I save it as jpeg, etc. without flattening anything. Even when I just select it with other layers and make a smart object, it still treats it as if it were normal (I guess) blend mode. Can someone show me the way?? TY.