Unlocking Multiple Photoshop CS5 Layers in One Shot

It can be a real pain when working with a PSD file in Photoshop CS5 that contains a multitude of layers with a smattering of lock layers throughout. You can hunt down each locked layer, select it, then click the lock icon in the Layers panel to unlock it. Who wants to deal with that? Not me.

Although Photoshop CS5 does not offer an official ‘Unlock All Layers’ command, you can achieve unlocking all layers by taking no action with the ‘Lock All Layers in Group’ command in the Layers menu.

First you will need to group all effected layers. The easiest thing to do is to group ALL layers. Group all layers by selecting them all, then select ‘New Group from Layers’ in either the Layers menu or the Layers panel option menu. Then click on the group folder in the Layers panel and select ‘Lock All Layers in Group…’ from the Layers menu. The dialog box illustrated below will appear. Then, without checking any of the checkboxes, click ‘OK’. This tells Photoshop “Hey, I don't want any lock actions taken in any of the layers in this group.”

This trick will work in Photoshop CS6 as well.

To unlock all layers in group, check nothing and click ‘OK’.