How to copy layer styles in Photoshop

Published in March 8, 2023

How do I copy a layer style?

In this blog I’ll show you 2 methods to copy layer styles from one layer to another in Adobe Photoshop.

Rather watch the video with instructions? Click here or scroll down to the end of this page.

Create layer style

To copy a layer style, you first need to create one. For this example, I’ve created 4 rectangles. I want to add the layer styles to the first one, so I select that layer. Then click on the fx icon below your layers and select one of the layer styles.

If you want to add more than one layer style, you can select those on the left side. I create a stroke and gradient overlay, but you can use every layer style.

Once you’ve applied the layer styles to the first layer, you’ll see the effects layer with the layer styles below it.

Copy layer styles

If you want, you can now easily copy these layer styles to the other layers. There are 2 methods to do this.

Method 1
If you drag the effects layer to another layer, this will move the effects from one layer to another. That’s not what you want.

What you need to do instead, is press and hold ALT while dragging the layer style to another layer. If you want to copy all the layer styles, you press ALT and drag the ‘effects’ layer to another layer.

You can also copy just one layer style. To do that, press and hold ALT and then drag that specific layer to another layer. So in this case that would be the ‘stroke’ layer or the ‘gradient overlay’ layer.

As you can see in the image above, I copied all the effects to layer 2, the stroke to layer 3 and the gradient overlay to layer 4.

Method 2
You can also just copy and paste the layer styles. To do that, right click on the ‘effects’ layer and select ‘copy layer style‘.

Then select all the layers you want to apply the layer styles to. Right click on one of the selected layers and select ‘Paste layer style‘.

The layer styles are now copied to the other layers. This will copy and paste all the layer styles (both the stroke and the gradient overlay, in this case). So if you want to copy just one of the layer styles, you need to use method 1.

And that’s how you copy layer styles from one layer to another in Adobe Photoshop!