Adjustment Layers: in Group Position vs Masked Position?

[Doren Sorell]

Ok, so .... I'm pretty fluent now in Photo, but still slightly confused on one thing (at least for this exact moment: lol):

I understand that Adjustment Layers come with their own embedded Masks. 

But -- not sure what the big difference is when I have a stack of Adjustment Layers that are effecting everything below and I put them in a Group for organizational purposes (like this, so I can have all my grading and toning in one place (in the purple group)):

And I like it like this most of the time, because if I need to remove ALL the adjustments from the entire Group from one particular area, which happens sometimes, I can add a mask to the whole Group and paint black on it. 

 

But here is when I'm stifled: why does it also let us put all those Adjustment Layers in the masked-child position (when the short vertical blue line appears directly beside the thumbnail, as opposed to the blue horizontal shorter line that appeared below and to the left of the group icon), and then they are reversed in order (which I understand why), and then "stacked" to the right  of the Group icon when it's collapsed, like this (first closed and then open):

 

  

 

If I don't need to place a mask on the group itself for any reason, I don't mind the Adjustment Layers to be like this, in what I called Masked Position (more indented, stacked to the right when group is closed, and visually in reverse order with how they are being applied), as opposed to what I call the Grouped Position (first picture above), where they are less indented, and only stacked inside and not visibly seen when the group is collapsed. 

I do know that in certain instances both those Positions I just mentioned can have a slightly different effect, but in the above example they do not. 

Any other advantages or differences that I'm not understanding or aware of?  Is one better than the other in this instance? 

Also, when I try to Ungroup them via the Arrange toolbar (when they are in the Masked Position), they all get deleted, which makes no sense to me. Unless I'm doing it wrong. LOL

Anyhow, thanks in advance.

 

[Callum]

Hi Doren Sorell,

Welcome to the forums

When you have the layers showing at the side of the group name they are clipped to the group meaning the effects of the layers will only appear within the objects inside the group (see screenshot for example).You can see from my second screenshot that the adjustment layers are clipped to the group where as the image layer is inside the group. When the adjustments are just grouped together as they are in your first example they will show through onto the layers below unless there is a pixel layer in the group if you put a pixel layer at the bottom of the group in your first example you will see that they are no longer applied to the whole image. I hope this helps clear up some confusion

[Doren Sorell]

I think I get it. I believe I was confused because in my example, with only Adjustment Layers, the results via the clipped (Masked Position) didn’t differ from the nested/grouped variation. But I think it’s merely because there was not a pixel or image or vector layer within that “group,” correct?