[Sam Palmer]

OK, I think I found out what the problem is having ran into the same problem dozens of times myself.

It’s not actually the ‘pass through’ that’s the problem, as everyone has said, the little star/sun icon does that.

What I suspect the problem is, is that the group in photoshop basiaclly has a mask on it which isn’t translated to AE when it’s brought across. You can see if this is true by opening the file in photoshop, putting a white solid at the top within the group that’s being problematic, then dropping a black solid underneath this group.

What you should get is an image like this:

You can then save it as a tiff (no need for layers) and then use it as a Luma Matte for all the items within that group.

Hope that helps!