Smart Objects and Album Layouts

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Smart Objects and Album Layouts

The next thing we're gonna look at is how you can use Smart Objects to replace one object within an image with another object. So I'm gonna close this down. Close this down. And what we're gonna do is we're just gonna make a whole new document here. So I'm gonna press Command or Control + N to make a new document and I'm gonna set this up like a layout. Like I want to make, let's say it's an album layout for a book of landscape images that I'm working on. I'm gonna call this Landscape Layout. Then I'm gonna make this inch-based and go 10 inches wide and 14 inches high, at 300 pixels per inch and press okay. Actually, you know what? I kinda want it the other way. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to image, and go to rotate canvas 90 degrees clockwise. That's better. So what I want to do is I want to make a layout that I can use on multiple different images, multiple different book pages. So I'm gonna start by just setting a couple of guides for myself. I'm gonna click here at the top...

, and just move this guide down to about the half-inch mark. So that I know that that's a safe printing area. Move this over here, to the half-inch mark again so it's about a safe printing area. Half-inch mark over here and notice the marks across the top and where I'm saving them, where I'm moving those guides to. And then one across the bottom right about here. So I'm making a custom layout that I can then put my images into. So I'm gonna make a couple different shapes here. I'm gonna go ahead and grab my shape tool and use a rectangular shape tool. And just do something like this. And we'll just take another one, maybe right here. If I want to maintain that half-inch rule, let's do this. There we go. Okay, I'm getting really picky here. And then Control + T to fix that shape and make it a little bit wider. There we go. And then let's make another shape right here, like this. Then if I want to do it with the half-inch rule. Control + T on that shape, make it a little bit smaller. And there. And then maybe I'll make two more shapes right here. One right here, and then another one right here. And with this one I might need to make it smaller if I need to click on it just Control + click on that shape. (mouse clicks) There we go. Think about a half inch. So, all these shapes are not actually Smart Objects right now. What these shapes are is that they are vector-based images but they are not Smart Objects. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna click on the top one, I'm gonna Shift + click on the bottom one and then right click and say convert to Smart Object. No, I'm not gonna do that. (laughs) Okay. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna just right click on this rectangle number four and say convert to Smart Object. Then I'm gonna click on rectangle number three. Right click. Convert to Smart Object. Rectangle number two. Right click. Repeat the pattern. Convert to Smart Object. Same thing for rectangle number one. Right click. Convert to Smart Object. So why I'm doing this is that - I can press Command or Control + H to get rid of my layouts now - is that because these are now Smart Objects, I can do things within these shapes that I couldn't necessarily do if they weren't Smart Objects. So if I double-click right here on this Smart Object, it's going to say "After editing the contents "choose file, Save to commit the changes. "These changes will be reflected upon "the returning to Landscape Layout." So, what that's telling you is that when you double-click this, it's actually going to open up what would be in that space as that Smart Object. But it's telling you that, in order for it to commit that space, you have to say that you want to save it to commit. So press okay. This shape is a new layer. It's a new document essentially. You see it says Rectangle.1.psb? It's a different type of document that's gonna save data within the workspace of that layout. So if I were to go into some images that I already have predefined here. And I were to go in and just grab, let's say, this image. And drag this and drop this into Photoshop on top of that rectangle. When I place it, it's gonna make that a Smart Object within inside of it. So if I go and press Shift + Alt, increase the size of that, now placing this inside that space. If I press cancel on this, or close. Remember how it said, "Do you want to save this?" I'm gonna say yes. It's gonna replace that shape with that image. So if you're thinking about album layouts, you're gonna think about how you can make one page that can have multiple images put into it so that you don't have to continue every time making this album layout, you make one album layout that looks like this, and you save it. You save it as landscape album layout 10 by 14, four blocks. Or something like that. Because if you double-click on this rectangle, check out what happens. That... That layer that we added to this is still contained within that square, or rectangle I should say. If we move it, we can move it to even make the size different 'cause it is remembering all of the data that's contained within that. So if I press Escape to commit, or cancel actually. The X I should say to commit. Press Yes. Now, if we double-click on this rectangle. Double-click. It's giving me that space of rectangle number two. If I go ahead and go into my images, click on this image. I believe I clicked all images from Chicago. Move that into there. Press Shift and Alt. Make this larger, to fit that screen a little bit better. If I exit out, it's gonna ask me, do I wanna save? Yes. And now that image is in there. Double-click this one. So what you can see, what you can do with this is if you have an album layout, even if it already has pictures within it, and you have it saved, you can go back to that anytime and change out what pictures are in there. So if you've got, maybe you have 15 different page layouts that you're going to use in this process for client-based work. If you're a wedding photographer and you wanna build your own very specific album pages, you could build all of your own album pages with Smart Objects, and then replace those pictures as necessary from one bride series to the next bride series. Now I know that there are other ways that you can do this within other programs but I'm gonna show you why this is beneficial to do it in Photoshop as opposed to other programs in a second here. So I'll move this into this rectangle. Shift and Alt, fix my size there. I'm just resizing that. Press Enter. Exit out. Save it. And then we need to open up the other one. Rectangle number four. Let's just take this guy. Some of them. Let's just take all of the Chicago images. That's what we're gonna do here. To my Chicago page. Something like that. Now obviously, I'm cropping these too, because I'm cropping off those edges. If I wanted to make this template exact to those images, I'd have to pre-plan a little bit, 'cause this image started out as a square and I'm putting it into the space of a rectangle. But when I commit to it and I save it, I can always go back by double-clicking on that to go into it if I needed to. But the cool part about this, is because these are all set up as Smart Objects, this is where the cool part comes in. We did that whole thing with the filters before, right? Let's say with this rectangle, we click on it, we go to filter, we go to blur and we go to Gaussian blur and we blur it a little bit. Let's just blur it a lot, so we can tell the difference. Blur it to about there. Press Okay. If we were to double-click this, nothing has actually happened to this photograph. This photograph remains the same. So if I were to replace this photo with any photo that I have in here. Let's just grab this one right here. And replace this photo with this one. Oops. I dragged it into the wrong space. Not thinking smart. So go ahead and drag this into this space here. Resize it to fit. Exit out, commit. Yes. Look at that. It changes the image, but it also changes the effect that happens within it. So for instance, if this is one of those albums that you're building where you know that, that's that one place it's gonna have that bokeh effect. Even if we were to come in here on that smart filter, and we were to brush, and brush something else. Let's make this a really large brush, and do kinda like a bokeh effect here. Like a little Gaussian vignette. Now if I double-click on this. Look at the images that are in there. Both those images are still in there. So if I turn this one off, and I save it, it's gonna replace that other image with that bokeh blur effect that's happening there. Now obviously, because these are Smart Objects, if you save it down with multiple files contained within that Smart Object, it's going to become a very big file. As we talked about before, there is a downfall to this. So a lot of times what I would consider doing with this is just maybe making your layouts like this. There is an ulterior way that you can do this. Instead of using Smart Objects you could also use clipping masks. The only problem with those clipping masks is that you wouldn't get the benefit of adding the smart filters to that area. And what I mean by a clipping mask is if we were to go into this one and just delete this completely and save that out, say Yes. We could essentially go in here, grab this image, pull this on to our photo or layout. Shape it to that rectangle up there and if we press Alt or Option and click here that will allow us to clip that into here. The only problem is, any effects that we do in there because it's not a Smart Object, would not happen to that photograph. This is basically now just overlaying itself and you're telling this image to just clip itself into that box, which is not the same as using a Smart Object workflow. Smart Object workflow will contain that information within it.

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Bonus Materials with Purchase

Photoshop Bootcamp Plug-In

Textures

Clouds

Painted Backgrounds

1 – Intro to Photoshop Bootcamp

6 – Intro to Raw Editing.zip

11 – Interface and Setup

16 – Intro to Cropping and Composition.zip

22 – Intro to Layers.zip

26 – Intro to Layer Tools.zip

43 – Intro to Selections.zip

50 – Intro to Cleanup Tools.zip

58 – Intro to Shapes and Text.zip

63 – Intro to Smart Objects.zip

69 – Intro to Image Transforming.zip

74 – Intro to Actions.zip

81 – Filters.zip

88 – Intro to Editing Video.zip

96 – Custom Effects.zip

102 – Natural Retouching.zip

107 – Intro to Portrait Workflow.pdf

110 – Intro to Landscape Workflow.zip

112 – Intro to Compositing.zip

115 – Rothko and Interfaces (Bonus Video).zip

33 – Intro to Masks and Brushes.zip

106 - Frequency Separation.zip

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