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Before you start duplicating the layers, you should have only one layer (the "Background" one) so there should be no need to flatten it at that point.Just to make sure i was reading this right. Do you flatten the image first before you duplicate the layer? or are you just duplicating the shape layer?
Either, actually. You'll get slightly different looks depending on which one you do, but the results will be close. Personally, I'd go with duplicating the blurred layer.Also, after you gaussian blur the first layer to 5 pix and you are getting ready to copy 'that' layer... which layer are you refering to? the layer that was alraedy blurred, or the original unblurred layer?