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Understanding Smart Objects

Lesson 22 from: FAST CLASS: Photoshop for Beginners: Essential Training

Mark Wallace

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Lesson Info

22. Understanding Smart Objects

Smart Objects allow you to transform raster and vector images without damaging any source content. Mark explains how and when to use Smart Objects.
Next Lesson: Smart Sharpen

Lesson Info

Understanding Smart Objects

Now, what we have here is we have a background layer, so we can unlock that. Or we can just click on it, go to Layer, and then we can go to Smart Objects, Convert to Smart Object. And just like that, bam, this layer is now a Smart Object. We know it's a Smart Object by the way this layer looks. So I'm gonna zoom way in on this layer. And you can see that this layer now has this icon right here on top of the thumbnail. And that means that this is a Smart Object. Okay, there is a different way to create a Smart Object, if you're using raw files. And that is the best way to create Smart Objects, because you're retaining all of the information from that file. So what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna open a different file. I'm gonna open File and then say, I'm gonna say file, open. Then we're gonna go to our class materials, and let's go to this file right here called Cammy skin dot CR3. It's a raw file. When I click open, Adobe camera raw opens. Now we're gonna learn all about Adobe camera r...

aw in the future. Don't worry about it right now, but what we need to do for this step is down here instead of clicking open we want to open as object. So when I click that, this file is going to load in, and now we have this smart object. You can see here that the layer has that icon. It's a smart object. So, we're gonna take this image here, this Cammy skin image and I'm going to do a free transform and I'm gonna shrink her on the canvas here. So we've got this Cammy right here. Now, I'm going to take this and I'm going to hit option command and I'm gonna drag this and I have made a copy. So I've just copied this layer. We have a second copy. And this one, I'm going to take this free transform. So I hit command T for free transform. I'm gonna make it, I don't know, a little bit bigger and stick that right there. And then, the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make another copy right here. And I'm gonna take this one and I'm gonna make it like that. Something like that. So I've got three different versions of Cammy here. Now the cool thing is they're all versions of the same smart object. So, if I go here to any of these and I double click it, what's gonna happen is Adobe camera raw opens again. And it's going to allow me to do manipulations on this image. Really cool. The exact same thing that I saw when I opened this. So I can go in. Let's say we change the exposure. Let's make her a little bit blue. I don't know. We'll make where she's super texturey and maybe black and white. Okay. And then I'll say, okay, now watch what happens. So it goes through all of these smart objects. They're different sizes, different orientations. Bam, all three of them have been updated. Now, there's another thing I can do with a smart object that's really cool. Let's say, Hey, I don't like these three being black and white. Again, I can double click. It's gonna open this. I'm gonna change this monochrome to modern four. I don't like that color temperature. That's really bad. Let's fix this. I'll say, okay. And now non-destructively, I've gone in and I've changed Cammy twice. Now you can see that she's back to where she is. All three of those have been updated. But let's say that I want this little image right here, I want to add a filter to that. So I can go up to filter, and remember we need to be in eight bits to do a lot of these filters, so I wanna change this to a eight bit mode. And now I'm gonna go up to filter, once this smart object has been updated. It does take a little bit of processing power. So I'm gonna go up to filter and then let's go to, oh, the filter gallery. And then for this one, let's do a sketch and we'll do a half tone pattern. No, let's do something that's a little bit more. There we go. That's more noticeable. So that's been changed. I'm gonna go over here to this copy right here. And I'm gonna go in, I'm going to do a liquify filter. This is one of those times you can actually change the pixel values. So I'm gonna make her a little bit smiley, like that. Make her nose go down, make her eyes go up. I'm liquifying her, make her chin really long. Okay. Now I've made a caricature of Cammy. Boom, I've got that. So these filters, normally when you apply a filter whatever you've done to them, they're there forever, but these are smart filters. So if I go into let's say the filter gallery, I double click that. I can change this to torn paper and say, okay, that changes that. And so I can change the filter that I've used. I can change the values of that filter. I can change those smart objects. I can go all the way back to Adobe camera raw and work on those. I can do a lot of things to smart objects and smart filters, and it's totally, non-destructive. It's something that's really useful.

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