Flattening layers can save disk space, but I never do it. I keep all of my layers, even if I don't need them anymore. When I realise there's something wrong with a piece and go to edit it, I don't even use the layers; I just draw over whatever was wrong to fix it lol. But the layers stay.
Nov '21
Dec '21
i merge layers but not the whole thing (the thought terrifies me 
)
usually my method is like combining things into groups and flattening on that basis; so lineart has it's own layer, then colors, background elements and then whatever other effects over the top. the reasoning is essentially the same in that i can just go back to edit the specific layer if theres a mistake or something that needs to be changed but if i'm 100% satisfied with a thing or there's no other details to go making changes/fixes on then yeah i'm likely to go flattening layers
i will say one of the big motivators for this is disk space (on my external drives tho not the computer device itself) so if i had more to work with and my laptop were a little more robust (in terms of like ram and processor) i'd probably be more likely to go nuts with layers. however as it stands her current max before she goes heating up too much is around 50-60 so i don't have much choice but to shrink things down lest she crashes or otherwise 
I try to downsize my layer numbers because of the hardware is not ideal. Not only I flatten them, I delete my files afterwards, only leaving the finished product.
No. I'm a very messy and forgetful person so merging my layers might ended up dooming myself if I forgot to add or deleted something. It is also very useful if I need to make a change for a piece like changing their clothes for something else when the layers are separated.
Oh never. I keep my sketch layer too. Especially with pages, being able to go back and edit is really important. No matter how thorough I try to be, I always end up forgetting to color something or I need to edit text without having to retype what I wrote. Though I do try to combine where I can to at least save on a little space.
Nope. I leave all my layers as they are, because sometimes I have to rework something, or reuse the backgrounds in other chapters. I do that a lot, to save time. So it would be counterproductive to delete any layer.
Yes, 99% of the time. The only time I leave the layers is when I've done a really difficult piece, usually one containing items/textures I didn't actually draw (like with photomanipulation). So that when I inevitably notice an error after posting, I can go back and fix it relatively quickly. ^^; Or, so that I can come back to it and see what techniques I used if I forget in the future.
I must say that I started to merge them recently when drawing comics. Of course, I still have a layer of lines, color, 3-4 effect layers and a couple of background layers (and maybe something else) but it's such a huge progress from 268 layers I had before 
But overall yeah, when you need to change something and some layers are merged, it's such a pain.
I don't do this with illustrations though, especially when making some "creative" lighting, so that if I want to make another illustration with the same effects, I can copy them from the old picture 
some of them may have like 7 layers of filters, and I don't even give it a chance that I'll remember how I did them a few months back.
Absolutely not. If I need to make changes later on, flattening the layers would make that impossible. I certainly keep a flattened copy on hand so I can quickly upload or print, but the original will always keep all the layers in tact.
The only time I had to flatten images was in 2006 in my high school computer graphics class. We were given small folders with a limit to discourage students from downloading music and movies. But I later always had a USB drive on me to make sure I didn’t have to do anything like that again.
Nope. Way too worried about wanting to go back in and change something to do that. At most I'll merge a few of the sketch layers together, but that's usually during inking and pretty rare besides.
I presume this is for digital artists with more complex tools then I use, cause I have no idea what "flatten your layers" means. But perhaps I do something similar, so someone please explain to me what that means.
No absolutely not 
. Getting nightmares thinking about it.
Short term reasons: What if I realize something looks awful or forgot something or need to change stuff for speech bubbles when my writer changes his mind about wording or or or...
Long term reasons: I've needed the base colors for characters that I thought were one-time appearances and weren't, so those will always be available to go grab. Sometimes I want to use lighting tricks or a certain overlay color from way back that I don't remember - easy, it's all saved and reasonably organized.
Even if I need to flatten groups of layers to do more effects on them, I always keep a folder with the original layers standing by and make sure it's clear what I did in case I need to modify or dig through it. Disk space feels like a small price to pay for reversibility/repeatability.
Well my disk space is still fine....for now. So I haven't really Though since I usually don't use a lot of layers in general I tend not to merge many.
