Toplearning: Class no19 || Smart objects in Adobe Photoshop

Hello and Welcome to complete beginners guide to Adobe Photoshop

As you create and build in Photoshop, you will find yourself repeatedly performing various tasks. A common task is to frequently resize images in your composition. Designing with raster images in Photoshop can sometimes prove hazardous. If you ever scale up an image above the original size, you will lose the sharpness in the image. Another task is updating and adding new visuals to compositions. As you bring in new raster images from files and other documents, it can be a challenging task to manage them all in the layers panel. As you create, you will find yourself building complex layer structures and it will help to stay organized. In Photoshop there is a smart way of working with images to help maintain quality and maintain a well-organized document. In this article tutorial I'm going to be discussing the use of Smart Objects in Photoshop. I'll be discussing why we use them and how to build them into a composition. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a good understanding of Smart Objects in Photoshop. So to follow along with this article, you will need to open this document I have prepared especially for this tutorial. This document can be found in the essential practice folder in the project folder. Now you can download this project folder for free. The download link is in the description. So with the project folder open, click essential practice, open the Smart Objects folder, and open "Smart Objects PSD" and you should have something that looks like this. So, what are Smart Objects? Well, Smart Objects are layers within a composition that contain image data from raster or vector images. Smart Objects are layers that contain original image content with all its original characteristics. This enables you to perform non-destructive editing to a layer. So let's see this in action. So over on the left we have what look like two identical images. Now these are actually quite different. So if we look over in the layers panel in the Example Area we can see two layers: one called PURPLE BIRD and one called PINK BIRD Now if we look carefully, we can see that on the PINK BIRD layer this has an icon on the image thumbnail. Now this is a Smart Object icon. This icon indicates that this layer is a Smart Object. So currently, they look identical. But let's take a look at raster image above. So I'll select this layer in the layers panel, PURPLE BIRD, and press Command T to activate free transform. So I'll scale this image right down, like so, then press Enter to commit. I'll press Command T again and scale back up to the original size and press Enter. So now we can see some deterioration in quality. The image is now looking a little pixelated and not very sharp. So next I'll come down and select the Smart Object layer, the pink bird, and perform the same task.

So I'll press Command T to activate free transform and scale the image right down, I'll press Enter, then I'll press Command T again and scale back up. Now this time, there is no deterioration in quality, compared to the example above. So why is this? Well our first example is a raster layer. We learned previously in the course that a raster image is made of physical pixels. As we scale and image down, pixels are taken away. We lose no superficial quality, though the size of the image will be smaller. When we blow up a raster image, Photoshop is going to have to generate new pixels to increase the image, thus, deteriorating the quality of the image. Just like we saw a second ago. We can see now that the top example is looking pretty pixelated and not as sharp as it was originally. This is the main issue when designing with raster images in Photoshop. As you design a composition, you may change your mind frequently about raster objects in your composition. Constantly changing raster image sizes may lead to going over the original image size. If this happens, you will begin to lose the sharpness of the image, as we see in the example here. So the second example is a Smart Object layer. This layer contains image data from a larger raster image. Now let's for a second come over to the smart object layer. Now if I carefully place my mouse cursor over the Smart Object layer thumbnail and double-click, all of the sudden the Smart Object image will be opened in a new tab. So here we are looking at the original image in its own right. We can see here that the image is in fact a lot larger than in the previous document. So if I press Command W to close this tab down, we will come back into the original composition. So Smart Objects are essentially links to higher quality compositions within a Photoshop document. So scaling this down and then back up has no effect on quality because in theory, we are not scaling the image, only a representation of the image here in this composition. So let's come over to the right and see how we can create a Smart Object layer in our composition. First, I'll come into the layers panel and toggle at the example area folder and toggle down the exercise area and select it. So for this example we can come back to the Smart Objects folder in the project folder and open up the "Bird HD PSD" So if we look in the layers panel, we can see that there are two layers here, a bird and a white base. If we look closely at the layers, we can see that these are both simple raster image layers. Nothing special about these. So on this occasion, I would like to bring the bird layer into my other document. So I'll press V to activate the move tool, I'll select the bird layer in the layers panel, then I will click in the canvas area and drag into the top panel of my previous document. When the document appears, I'll place my mouse cursor into the canvas area and release click. Upon release, the raster document will drop into my document as a new layer in the layers panel. So as we can see, the raster image is currently rather large in my document area. Now if I simply activate free transform and scale this down, this will simply create a smaller raster image. But I don't want to do that. I want to maintain the highest quality of this image. So I'll quickly undo that, and come over into the layers panel and place my mouse cursor over this new layer in my layers panel. If I right click, up will pop a menu. From this menu, I'm going to chose "Convert to Smart Object" Upon click we will now see the Smart Object icon applied to this layer. This layer is now a Smart Object. So if I go ahead and press Command T to activate free transform, I can scale this image down in the knowledge that this layer contains a link to the original raster image that is very large. So if I scale this image right down then scale back up again, we will not lose any quality. Now if I come into the layers panel and double-click on the new Smart Object, we will then open the Smart Object in another tab. So I'll press Command W to close this. So why is this now opening in a new tab when I brought this into a new document in the first place? Well this is how Photoshop deals with Smart Object layers. When you make a layer a Smart Object, you separate the original from the current document. This allows you to organize your main composition, manipulate the size and effect of any Smart Object in a non-destructive way. Using Smart Object is also good if you wish to change or edit and object. For example, I'll come over and double-click on the "BIRD" Smart Object thumbnail. With it open in a new tab I'll press Command J to duplicate the layer. So now we have two layers in the Smart Object document. So I'll toggle the visibility of the first layer and I'll make a quick modification to the new layer's color. So I'll just quickly change the hue saturation of this layer. I'l press Command W to close the document. Photoshop will ask if I wish to save, I'll click "Yes." Upon saving we will go back to the original comp, and now we can see the new update. So Smart Objects can also include many layers. Smart Objects work really well when you have lots of complex graphics in your main composition. If each creative object exists in your composition as a Smart Object, this means you can treat them as separate creative entities and focus on them as individual parts of a bigger picture. This can help to create a well organized document and a smooth practical workflow.

So I'll double-click on the Smart Object layer again, I'll toggle the visibility of the top layer, and bring back the original. I'll press Command W to close the tab, press "Save," and the Smart Object will update. Convenient! Now we can treat Smart Object layers just like any other layer. For example, we can apply layer styles to Smart Objects. If I double-click on the smart Object Layer to the right of the name in this space, up will pop the layer styles menu. And I'll just give this an outer glow, like so. Easy. So the last thing to mention is if you use Smart Objects, your overall file size will be larger. Remember, Smart Objects generally contain data for high quality images. As your composition grows and and contains more and more high quality images, the file size will begin to get larger. So Smart Objects in Photoshop: Great for maintaining quality and organization in your documents, but as a consequence will make your document file size larger. So that's Smart Objects in Photoshop. its a good habit to use them, as you will retain high quality at all times. Now up until this point in the course, we have mainly been looking at various tools that enable us to use the program, get hands on with layers, and create various elements in the canvas area. In Photoshop, there are a huge range of color adjustments that can apply various effects to your photos and graphics. In the next article, we are going to learn about adjustments and how we can make changes to color on our images.