What is the Purpose of a Smart Object in Photoshop?

Hi there readers! Every week we bring blogs on multimedia topics which cover programming, video, animation, graphic, CAD, etc. To continue our blog series, this time, we have a useful blog on Adobe Photoshop. This blog talks about Smart Object in Photoshop. For those who are new to Photoshop, let me first share some brief overview of it.

Adobe Photoshop: A Magical Software Application

Usually, the very first tool that every designer or design aspirant should learn is Photoshop. Generally, we use it for photo editing and compositing. But it does design too. It has Pen tool, Type and vector shapes tools to help in designing graphic layouts like logos, ads and banners. Photoshop has many brushes and a dedicated brush tool series. This series includes Brush, Pencil, Eraser, Mixer brush and Color Replacement. All these tools help in digital painting too. You should be good at digital art, image editing, and graphic layouts designing to be a graphic designer. Photoshop gives that start.

You can begin it in the right way with our certificate course in Adobe Photoshop. This program adds skills you need to be a graphic designer. Or another way is to join course in graphic design.

Readers, you can follow all the above given images to make a new document in Photoshop.

Coming on the main point now.

What is Smart Object in Photoshop?

Photoshop has layers and usually all of its work is done through them only. Generally we have raster layers, type layers, vector layers, and Smart Object also comes among the layer types. It allows us for non-destructive editing. In non-destructive editing, we can make changes in the appearance of layer without disturbing its original form. You can say it preserves the source content of that layer. For example, if we apply any filter to image and save its file then usually there is no way to edit the filter settings again. But if we work on smart object layer then editing filters is always possible.

Smart object gives re-editing feature without altering the original form of the layer in Photoshop.

What is the Purpose of Smart Object in Photoshop?

We can scale, rotate, or transform a Smart Object without losing image quality. It maintains its original resolution.

How to Create a Smart Object?

There are a few basic methods to create a smart object in Photoshop.

1. Select the existing layer in the layers panel and right click. Then select “convert to smart object” option.
2. Another way is to go to “File Menu” and select “Place Embedded” or “Placed Linked” options to import an image.

Follow the below given photos for better idea to create smart object layer.

Features of Smart Objects: –

We find some additional features related to Smart objects inside Layer Menu. Let’s talk about some of the important one among those features.

1. New Smart Object via Copy

When we select “smart object via copy” option, it creates a duplicate that is independent of the original. It means, whatever change we apply on this new smart object will not apply on original one.

2. Update All Modified Content

It is a quick way to refresh the document to reflect changes made to any externally linked files. It ensures that any linked content that has been modified gets update in our document.

3. Stack Mode

We need to start by importing multiple images with same scene but captured different exposures. Then covert those layers to smart object. Once we converted layer into smart object, go to stack mode and select from the available modes.

Some of the common stack modes are: – mean, median, maximum, minimum, range, summation, standard, and variance. Overall stack modes are used for exposures, reduce noise, or to remove unwanted elements.

4. Edit Contents

Double click on the smart object thumbnail in the layer panel or access it from Layer menu > Smart Object > Edit Contents. This opens the smart object in the new window. In this window we can apply changes we want. Then save the smart object by pressing CTRL+S or go to File > Save. Then document will automatically update with the change we made to the smart object.

5. Reset Transform

Smart Object keeps its original data unchanged at the time of resizing, rotating, or altering it in any way? Thus, we can always reset transform without losing quality using this option.

Steps to reset transform:-

• Then go to Layer Menu > Smart object > Reset transform. This will instantly revert the layer to its original position, rotation or scale.
• First select the Smart object layer in the layer panel.

6. Relink to file

We can replace the current linked file of a Smart Object with a new one using Relink to File function. This keeps all the transformations, effects, or styles applied to the Smart Object. It reflects the changes on the new file.

How to Use Relink to File: –

1. First select the smart object layer in the panel that we want to relink.
2. Right-click on the Smart Object layer, and select Relink to File or go to Layer > Smart Objects > Relink to File.
3. At last, select the new file link to the smart object. Once we select the new file, Photoshop updates the Smart Object with the new content. It retains all existing transformations and effects.

7. Relink to Library Graphic

We can connect with Creative Cloud Library through this option. With this option, we gain consistent updates across any documents that use the same library graphic. And if we make any adjustments then it adds updates automatically in all documents that use that asset.

Steps to use relink library graphics: –

1. Select the Layer Panel and choose which smart object layer we want to relink.
2. Now right click on that layer and choose the relink library graphics or go to the Layer Menu > Smart Object > Relink to Library Graphics.
3. After this, we will see a panel with our creative cloud libraries on right side. We can select the graphic what we want to relink and smart object updates to use the library asset.
4. The selected library asset will replace the smart object. The layer will now be linked to the library graphic.

Advantage: – The major advantage of using libraries is that multiple people can access the same asset through library.

8. Embed All Linked

Sometime we face broken smart object links in the PSD files. To fix this we can use Embed All Linked option.

How to Use Embed All Linked: –

1. Open the PSD file that has one or more linked Smart Objects.
2. Now go to Layer menu > Smart Objects > Embed All Linked. This command converts the all-linked files into embedded Smart Objects and them in the same document.
3. After this, save the document.

9. Rasterize

Another option in the group is rasterize smart object. After rasterization, we can do editing using brushes, selection tools, eraser, etc. but the editing is non-reversible. This also loss the ability to transform without quality loss.

10. Replace Content

The Replace Content feature is useful option to replace the embedded content within a Smart Object with another file. It doesn’t disturb any transformations, effects, or layer styles which we have applied to the Smart Object layer.

How to Use Replace Content: –

1. First, select smart object layer in the layer panel that we want to replace.
2. Now right click on the layer and select replace content. Or go to Layer > Smart Object > Replace content.
3. Then select the new file. After selecting it, Photoshop swaps the current content of the smart object with the new file.

11. Export Content

Another important option is Export Contents. Using this option, export the particular layer we have in the Smart Object. This also allows us to use those layers independently.

So, Smart Object layers are most important components in Adobe Photoshop. I hope u understand what is the purpose of smart object & its key features. In order brush up your editing skills with Photoshop, there is a program for you. We have a dedicated course in photo editing. This program covers everything you need to be a good photo editor.

For more information on our courses, feel free to reach us out on 📞+91 9811818122.

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