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Adobe Creative Suite 3 Smart Object Techniques
By xaby | October 10, 2007
Adobe’s Smart Objects feature is something that could significantly change the way you use Photoshop. It isn’t a new feature as such, but it has been enhanced tremendously in Photoshop CS3, making it more flexible and more powerful than before.
Smart Objects are self-contained graphics that live within the regular Photoshop document as individual layers. These can be ordinary Photoshop layers that have been converted to Smart Objects or they can be content from Illustrator or InDesign that has been pasted in as Smart Objects. When a Smart Object contains vector graphics the objects remain resolution independent and scalable. Even Smart Objects created from native Photoshop text can be given effects yet remain editable. This provides the savvy user with a true resolution independent, non-destructive creative workflow, right there in Photoshop CS3.
Illustrator into Photoshop
Bringing Illustrator artwork into Photoshop as a Smart Object is simple; choose File > Place or just copy and paste from Illustrator directly. Placing creates a Smart Object automatically, but when copying and pasting artwork from Illustrator into Photoshop you’re given the choice of pasting the data as a Smart Object, as pixels, as paths, or as Shape Layers. There are times when one of the other options may be better, but for retaining Illustrator’s editing abilities the Smart Objects choice can’t be beaten. (Choosing Shape Layers or Paths converts the parts of the illustration to native Photoshop vector elements. This preserves scalability but loses any special Illustrator features, not least the ability to edit again in Illustrator, in the process.) The item appears as a new layer in the Layers panel, with a small Smart Objects badge in one corner of the thumbnail image.
These Vector Smart Object layers in Photoshop are extremely flexible. Because they contain all of the original Illustrator vector graphics, they render to the resolution of your document. This image can also be rescaled up and down without any loss of quality. With the layer selected, choose Edit > Free Transform and drag the item’s handles. You can scale the layer to any size you like, or resize the whole document for that matter, and the Smart Objects will render cleanly and crisply every time.
There are some limits to what you can do with Smart Object layers in Photoshop, all revolving around the fact that they’re not pixel-based graphics. For example, brushes, erasers, and similar tools can’t be used without rendering the layer as regular pixels first. If you really want to use these features it can be worth duplicating the Smart Object layer first in case you need to return to the editable shapes version later. Choose Layer > Duplicate Layer or Layer > Smart Objects > New Smart Object via Copy to do this, then hide one of the layers and convert the other to pixels with Layer > Smart Objects > Rasterize. But Smart Object layers can be treated with blend effects and opacity settings in the Layers panel, given layer styles, layer masks and vector masks, and adjustment layers from the Layer menu. One point to note, however, is that layer masks aren’t linked to the layer’s movement. If you set a layer mask and then move the layer itself about in the image, the mask will stay put. You’ll have to move the layer mask independently to get it into the same relative position.
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