Photoshop has a lot of hidden secrets. Many photographers settle for using just a handful of tools for their work without knowing the full potential of what Photoshop can do for their photos and workflow.
Smart objects represent one of these tools. When you learn how to use Photoshop, there are a few breakthroughs or landmarks in the learning process. Think about how you felt when you learned how to use layers or when you used curves for the first time. Learning how to use smart objects might be your next one.
For some mysterious reason, smart objects tend to be neglected or ignored. In reality however, they are incredibly useful and dare I say necessary.
(Success Tip: How to make more money with your photography)
Let's say you want to place one file on top of another. This can be a layer with a photograph that has to go on a poster. You might not know exactly how big or small you want that picture to be on the poster, so you will have to experiment until arriving at the desired result. Using the image as a normal object will cause it to lose quality though. When you reduce the size of a normal object and then bring it back to its original size or even a larger one, you lose quality. That's because those pixels get lost.
A smart object will prevent that from happening. It works by keeping the source filed stored and no matter how you change the size of the image, the pixels remain the same.
One other very cool thing about using smart objects is that you can apply smart filters to them with the option of altering those effects after they've been applied. That's not something you can do with a normal object and as you'll start using this feature, you'll notice how useful it can be.
Finally you can link objects and that will allow you to make a desired change on one document and it will affect all the others.
No Photoshop lesson is complete without a proper video tutorial. For that, we turn you to Phlearn and Aaron Nace who explains exactly how smart objects work and how to use them. Enjoy!
Learn more cool Photoshop features from these recommended books :
- Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book
- The Adobe CC Book for Digital Photographers
- Adobe Photoshop CS 6 for Photographers : A professional image editor's guide to creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC