Gradient Problem

Hi, all.. I have a problem with a layer of text which goes wonky when I flatten the layers down to one. The font layer has a layer style consisting of Outer Glow, Gradient Overlay and Stroke. When flattened, the gradient shifts so that what appeared to be a line of yellow running horizontally across the letters shifts to a strange angle and a lot of garbage information shows up in the image. I've narrowed it down to being the gradient portion of the style. Anyone know how to flatten this and keep it looking like the layered .psd? Here's my style for the fonts:

First, you say your yellow stripe is running horizontally across the letters but I don't know how that can be when you don't have it set to be horizontal in the controls. You obviously have it set at an angle, 107° to be exact.

But regardless of that, here's something you might try. Back in the layers palette right-click on the text layer with these effects and choose "create layers". Then link the text layer with the new effects layers you just created and do "merge linked layers"

If that doesn't work then as a last resort you could just do "copy merged" from the Edit drop down menu then paste that. It should be the same result as you're expecting from flattening.

I know what you mean about the 107°.. that was thowing me, too. It was displaying perfectly normal until merged. Changing that to 90° fixed that part of the problem. It now merges correctly. How come when I get stuck it's always something that stupid-simple?
After more tweaking, it's clear that the "garbage information" I mentioned has something to do with the Stroke, not the Gradient. It only shows up when you zoom in, print or flatten. Otherwise the image looks great, which is annoyingly misleading. Here's what I mean by "garbage":

The red "scribbles" are the problem. They are apparently a part of the image, you just don't see them until you zoom, flatten or print, etc. If I get rid of the Stroke, the scribbles go away. Do you know what causes them? Can I keep the stroke and ditch the scribbles? I've tried messing with all the layers in the image, thinking that there's something behind the text that's somehow picking up the stroke color but I don't see a thing. Any thoughts? Thanks for you help!!

If you do the "create layers" thing like I mentioned in the previous post that should place the layer style effects each on their own layer. Then if necessary you could simply erase those red "scribbles" directly from that layer.

As for why you're getting those anomolies...[shrug] I have no idea.

Just a question...are your text layers still text? Or have then been rastorized?

I'm sure they are rasterized, and what is seen is some areas with a very small opacity.
you can marquee, erase them.

There is a lesson : always check your image at 100% (besides for sharpening, 50% is better)

Sometimes for some font when the font size for the text layer is set to value like 12.83 or 7.28 pt (that can be done with free transform applied to the text layer) Photoshop may produce some artefacts: broken text edges, stranger addition someplace and so on. Try to round each font size value in your text layer.