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Adobe Lightroom Smart Objects

Lesson 24 from: Everyday Adobe Photoshop: From Workflow to Smartflow

Dave Cross

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Lesson Info

24. Adobe Lightroom Smart Objects

Lesson Info

Adobe Lightroom Smart Objects

All right, so let me ah do this so let's bring light room into the equation will bit so almost everything I've talked about could happened starting in light room but it's got one little twist to it that as long as you're prepared for it is not a problem but it is a little bit different so most people I think who I talked to who use light room they do as much as they had in lighter which is fantastic new all the you know develop module stuff and move sliders and then they press a shortcut or choose edit in photo shop fine problem is that's a dead end street issues edit and photoshopped it says let me apply those settings opening the photo shop just like when I showed you camera without that little check box it went into photo shop the end I would much prefer to be able to say what if I still want to edit those settings so just like I showed you before I said I'm gonna deliberately dark and a photo we have to help with a selection I did that on camera what if I want to that in light room...

too and I know I'm going to photo shop to select the sky so in light room why not move the sliders and make it temporarily? The problem was if you do ed info job it's not temporary it's permanent so how do we make it temporary? And the answer is, and I'll show you this and seconds want to summarize it here in light room, you go to the photo menu edit in, but don't say photo shop, you say open as smart object in photo shop, which is much further down the list of people missing because up to the top of this is headed in photos. So down the bottom somewhere, it says, open as smart, obviously and photoshopped. What that does is it opens in photo shop with all those settings apply, just like when I took from kamerad force up at that point, there's no difference. Here is where the differences with camera awe when I double click on the smart object, it went back to camera with light room. When I double click on the smart object, it goes to camera so you cannot create a two way street directly between light. When photoshopped goes like room, photoshopped camera, raw light room, actually, sorry it goes light room photos off camera photos up like room, so adding the settings and the case anyone doesn't realize this out. Their light room and camera are identical, so if you've moved exposure and clarity, sliders and light room, the same sliders will appear in the same place in camera. So the engine is the same the only difference is when you're doing something smart in photos of me double click it can't go backto light room it goes first to camera so you just settings if necessary when you click ok, it comes back to photo shop so you continue working once you're finally finished a new clothes and save the document, it returns to your light room catalog and it will say name of file dash edit dot psd so you get a photo shop document that's a version of starting with your original file that has whatever you've done in photo shop and will appear in your life your catalog right beside the one you started with so the net result is it's very similar to what we have been talking about it just takes that little extra detour, but as long as you know that that means you're good to go because you start in light room and do as much of your light room editing all the same things you normally do but a student you think and I want to do some of that photo shop stuff with masking and multiple copies everything else then that's the differences goes through camera raw first so it looks like this someone here I have light room I'm sure ok so here's my light room of the whole bunch of files and I want to work on this one and maybe do some compositing of this one and she's got like all the hair going on here and again I could have shot her on a black background, but that would have been much too easy, so I used the same theory is ok, I want to make sure that when I go to make a selection it's going to be easy to relatively easy to do that, so I'm going to do that by trying to initially make mohr contrast in her hair and the background if I choose, if I just chose edit and photo shop, then I'd have a very dark photo thie end and I could make a nice mass, but I'd be a nice mask of a dark, very dark photo so instead I all the way down here says open as smart object and photoshopped she does because she's like a wood name for something now here is the other little catch to this not really catch but it's a it's, a warning label morning normally if I was going toe like before when I put the model on the brick wall just said dragged them all onto the brick wall, but this document right here is the one that's ultimately linked back to light room, so if I drag her on a different document it's no longer part of that light room file so I have to drag the background into this document because it's this one is the one that ultimately will end up back in light so that's the actual twisted you can't just arbitrarily say I'll drag her over and you could then you'd lose once you saved it nothing would return to your light room catalog because that is not the same document so that's kind of the only little twist to this is you have to think about that aspect is a you know if I'm going to put this background behind her or put her in front of this back on everyone to say it I would drag the background into this document and then make it fit and then drag it behind now I can continue so by doing it this way eventually once I save this document it will as you'll see go back to the light room catalog ok, so that's the two things you're going to notice differences that where you you want to be always thinking that this document is the one that I'm going to end up with back in light room and also the fact that as you'll see in a second let's just say that I was okay let's try and make a half decent selection for our purposes of her quick selection tool okay hit refined edge he said hit refined edge and it just ignored him completely and we go on layers and we'll do that old smart radius things see what it can find and I'm not going to spend too much time on fixing it trying to make it perfect is that as you've already seen how to do that but I want to show you at least that the rough idea here trying to get look half decent I'm just painting with this built in tool that tries to make a better edge and I'm deliberately not going to worry too much about it because ultimately she's not going toe end up being this dark so therefore there may not be quite as much contrast but this is the part that I would offer to spend a little more time on trying to make it look as best I could and moving slider around everything else but for now I'll just hit layer mass click ok so at this point this is really no different than what we just did with the other example except the started on camera but this is where the difference comes in. I started in late room and I said edit and photo shop as smart object I'm doing this editing and now that I've got a mass looking decent and I want to move on, I want to put her back more like the way she looked before many people's expectation be if I double click would go backto light room because it started there but it doesn't it goes to camera because technically for whatever reason known only to adobe it can't do a direct link it does a detour but the good news is I should have written these down to prove it but these air the settings that I did in light room I had all of these settings so that it carried those over so it's still there inside that smart object this happens it started in light room I'm reading it now in camera so effectively the result is the same it just sometimes surprised me was like why didn't go back to light and people whose light room all the time and not camera will be taken aback for eleven seconds I go away they're the same set that just looks a little different now in light room there sliders called exposure contracts are the same so here let's use just use camera defaults and pull back some of this a little bit maybe more like that like ok and then it updates now I would continue to fix this and make it look marvelous and I'm not going to because that's not the purpose of this demonstration but let's pretend as we have all through this class gosh, that looks fantastic, doesn't it? It's a perfect most amazing extraction mask you've ever seen in your entire life so I'm happy I'm ready to move on but I wantto save this all I do is close it and save it and because it started life in light room it ends life and light room and you'll see there it is right there can see the file now I know if I knew like room there is a way to show it at the top but they actually the file name says dash edit dot psd so here's my original that's still, by the way looks dark because even though I edited in photo shop, the light room version is still looking this way so I have to go back and reset it to normal but here's my photoshopped version right beside it and that happened I didn't do anything that happened automatically so like room has this very nice kind of round trip it's just not quite a direct journey there's a bit of a detour in there but it still is a really nice thing because people people's worry is well by starting light room where does it end up? It ends up in your catalog if you do it this way but for this toe work and this is very important it only worked because I didn't drag her into the other photo. If I had nothing would've shown up here I had to make sure I was preserving the one that came from light room and dragged the background into that photo so effectively so looks the same way but that's the part most people that's what messes them up is they think ok good now all drag her in and all of a sudden they broken that linked to their catalog go where to go and then when you go to save this eye where would you like to save it? Because that's this is a completely separate file now it's not part of light room anymore question you know exclamation points right here and it says overwrite metadata so I'm not seeing one for this one but generally when I work on a photo in light room and photoshopped it comes back which one? Well because I did it in the smart object way it's not the normal just edit in photos show so I'm getting a lot of these because I I make my life more challenging by sometimes I work on these air light room sometimes I work in them and bridge so that's why it's kind of going at I know what's going on here but the one that I worked on specifically and then the one I added a smart object you wouldn't see that exclamation mark because it was directly back and forth and the reason I'm getting these other ones because I did a bit of editing both or if you just use edit in photo shop then it's not sure because the relationship isn't light is back and forth yeah ok so the main point I want to make about the light room aspect is that almost everything we've talked about would work the same way of saying bring one in and then do new smart object by a copy all those techniques work the same the biggest differences were starting in light woman saying at it as a smart object or open as a smart object not just edit and photo shop and I'm not a big light room user so I can complain about it a lot and one of my biggest pet peeves and I've asked them a kind of gone not waste anything is I'd be so happy if I could make this committee like edit the keyboard shortcuts can't do that can add custom keyboard shortcuts and like abu because that way I would just do that every time I would even worry about like what is this? Just jump so now I have every time use the menu to go go down here I know it's a small thing but you got have something complain about right? So that's my complaint is I wish you could just say I want to make that my shortcut doesn't really matter though because I don't really personally start in light room so it's not a big deal but so anyway that's that all the things we were talking about like when we were doing the you know the version with the the two versions of the boat and all those things still share the same principle of take advantage of that ongoing ability to edit back and forth the only big differences sata's in light room it takes this kind of slightly detoured path and I've met a few light room users that it really threw them off at first until I just compared side by side look here's the light room sliders here's the same sliders in camera they're called the same thing they do the same thing with settings air carried over it's just doesn't visually quite look the same, but since we're hopefully doing most of our editing and light room and then a tweaking in camera it's not that big a deal to just go in there enoughto what I typically would use it for is as in that last example deliberately start too dark or too light and then in camera kind of put it back so it doesn't really matter I'm going backto light room cause I'm just doing some adjusting on the fly so as we're talking about all the different options that are available in doing camera raw slash light room editing almost all of them, I can't think of too many occasions where you couldn't do exactly the same thing either wherever you start and that's why throughout the class, whenever a question came up with what about light room was kind like well, wait for it because it's it's pretty much the same thing just a slight little twist but once it gets in photo shop, then all things we talked about all bets are on you can do you know justin layers and clipping mass and all those other things on top of the fact that it started life in light room or camera or whatever it is questions about that makes sense I'm seeing mostly nodding is the internet voting like the internet nodding that this is making sense to them? Yes, generally onda again and we've had questions coming in there's almost listen as they come in advance it is a really good sign sam cox is asking though they're saying after saving the ps cibak tow bar, howto open and make additional edits and ps complete with layers and smart object well, when you see a psd file in light room technically it's still a photoshopped file, so if you are just open it at that point it would open and photoshopped with everything that's in there because that's by nature part of the photo shop file and sam also wanted to know, do they have to be compatible versions of a c r in late roman photoshopped I mean an ideal world, I would say you want to have the most up to date versions unless you had really oddly different versions, I mean the key slide is going to use haven't really changed so as long as you're fairly compatible in terms of the latest version of like truman and camera, I can't think of too many situations that it would cause a problem. Normally the problem people run into with versions of camera on light room are like this version has more cameras set, you know, available to use than the other one or something, but for my purposes, I don't think that would really make any difference because long is there relatively current should be ok just to clarify if if we've opened in light room and then processed in photo shop and saved if we open the photo shop pile again in light room is still going back through the a c r engine well, if you need to edit it in other words um, I close it out of here so here's my photo shop one al if I choose edit in photo shop, I want to edit the original because that will have everything in it you see there it is now this point if I want to further editing of this file than the camera raw thing is still there, but if I was just I'm done it looks great is going to open and close up with whatever layers and settings I've done, but that linkage if you will to camera still exist if in this case I still decide to something I double click is looking to do the camera raw part so then that means keep all your files in the same place otherwise you're gonna break link and the good thing about white room it does that automatically if you start in light room and say why didn't you know it's when I hit save it didn't say where do you want to put it? It just assumed it's got to go back in my catalog it's almost it's actually easier in that case and photo shop it's the onus is on you to put things because you when you hit save because it's a new document in effect where do you want to put that with light room of justice says wherever you have your files of a game with all put that pulpit and they're automatically and nicely right beside the one you started seeing kind of oh yeah there's my roth filed there's my ptsd version side by side can you have the this section I know was one you would have before to you came specifically for this have you had the all your questions answered so far? I probably got something I want to ask you know dave maybe drink during during the break because I want to work with separate light room catalogs so I think that adds a layer of complexity and probably way to discuss here but yeah and that is worth noting though because, um the principle of it is if I'm starting in this light room catalog. With this image that's where I'll go back to if you're trying to combine images from two different catalogs, I I would assume, well, ultimately, I guess, as it would be like, in this case, had to make sure the background was dragged into this photo. So that would be the cattle to go back to. So that might be the only part. You have to kind of figure out, where do I want this to reside? So that will be kind of the document that I'll put things into and save to go into there.

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Smartflow Notes

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I enjoyed this class by Dave Cross. I like his method of teaching and found him very easy to follow and I learned lots of good tips on smart objects and working non destructively. I have just made the move from PS Elements to Photoshop CC 2014 so have lots to learn so I look forward to more from Dave in the future. Thanks Dave, I thoroughly enjoyed this class.

Roni Chas
 

DAVE CROSS IS AN EXCELLENT INSTRUCTOR. HE EXPLAINS TECHNIQUES SO THAT I CLEARLY UNDERSTAND WHAT HE IS DOING. I LOVE HIS TIPS, AND I LEARN SOMETHING EV!!ERY TIME I HEAR DAVE. I DID BUY THIS PROGRAM, I WANTED TO BE ABLE TO REVIEW IT AND GET IT ALL. I HAVE HEARD DAVE TEACH BEFORE AT NECCC CONFERENCE AND WAS SO HAPPY TO WATCH AND PURCHASE THIS COURSE. I CONSIDER MYSELF PROFICIENT IN PHOTOSHOP YET I CONTINUE TO LEARN NEW THINGS WATCHING DAVES PROGRAM! HUGE THANKS DAVE!!!

a Creativelive Student
 

Dave Cross is a wonderful instructor! He has a fantastic teaching style and has great mastery of his subjects!

Student Work

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