Ribs

How would you "rasterize" the layer effects? So that instead of it being the object with the effects on it its just the individual pixels with no effects on them... does that make sense?

tan_pao_wei

create a blank layer above the one you want to rasterize, then, on the blank layer, go to layer > merge down. That gets rid of the effects.

Welles

Well Ribs found a good tutorial on how to use the Create Layers command but I thought I'd chime in here. Often I want to 'flatten' all the effects of a layer so I can then run a second filter on that particular layer. 101jinx101 was heading in the right direction but there is an oddity with the Merge Down command. If you have highlighted the styled layer which you wish to 'flatten' and create a new blank layer above it, the default new layer action, and then try Merge Down, the styles remain intact. If you place a new blank layer below the layer you wish to flatten and Merge Down, you get the expected 'flattening' of the layer styles. You can also highlight the styled layer, create a new layer, link the two and merge linked to get the 'flattened' result.

A little caution is in order when using this technique. Outer Glows and Drop Shadows may not work the way you expect because the blend modes have been eliminated in the 'flattening' process.

Bacardi

What I like is to right-click (Cmd-click on the mac) on the word "effects below the layer, and then choose "create layers" and "scale effects".