Photoshop Problem

I am in the middle of making a fantasy set of cars for the 90's mod.

Whenever I want to drag a layer with the move tool, it automatically selects either the main paint layer, or the shading layer.

No matter what I do, photoshop automatically selects one of those layers, even though I picked a different layer.

I temporarily have surpassed this, but it's a long process

My thinking is that there is a "captain" or "main" layer that photoshop goes to and that layer is the one that automatically gets selected. That's a guess but I am not sure.

What do you guys think? (this is CS5 by the way)

make sure you are using the correct icon from the toolbar.. if not sure just hit the V key and it will select the move tool for you.. if that doesn't fix it i'd say the only other thing it could be is that multiple layers may be locked but that doesn't seem to be the case from your description

...oh and make sure you have the proper layer selected in the layer palette

I don't have my laptop with me right now so I'm going off of memory, but I believe somewhere (it may be in the tool options) there is an option that says "Move Section" or "Move Layer". Make sure "Move Layer" is selected.

Also, another way that may fix this is to go to Window --> Workspace --> Reset Workspace.

Thanks for the help guys.

Unfortunately none of your ideas worked. Even if I pressed V and tried to move it, "shadow", "mask", or another Layer is automaticly selected.

However, one thing I noticed was that there is a thing called "Edit in Quick Mask Mode" in the tools bar, and it is the very last option on the bottom left of the screen. I accidentally clicked that once, but changed it back. Maybe that messed it up?

It's really confusing, and it does not stay on one layer either. Even if I move "shadow", it will jump to "paint" instead.

Update: I just realized what's happening, on the move tool, whatever the mouse hovers over, it will AUTOMATICALLY select that layer.

If I am over the number, it will select that instead. If I have it over nothing, it will select either the main paint, or shading.

So now I understand why it messes up, my question now is how do I bring back to normal? Like when a layer is selected, I do not have to click on the layer to move it.

EDIT: I solved the problem. On the top left, there was an "auto-select" option with a box to the left of it. I had it check-marked by accident, which made all of Photoshop messed up.

Thanks for all the help guys. I appreciate it  

glad you've got it figured out bud!