Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual

Using Smart Objects

A Smart Object is a very special, container-like layer into which you can plop all kinds of stuff, such as raw files (Working with Raw Files), vectors (drawings) from programs like Adobe Illustrator (Chapter 14), other layers, and even whole PSD files. Smart Objects are smart because Photoshop protects what you put into them by applying your edits to the container instead of what’s inside of the container. This lets you do the following:

• Transform or resize it without losing quality. Instead of resizing the instance (a copy) of the content that you inserted into your document, Photoshop remembers info about the original, resizes that, and then places that information back into your image (without altering the original file). In the blink of an eye, Photoshop updates your document with the newly resized content without making it look blocky (so long as you don’t exceed the file’s original dimensions too much—unless it’s vector-based, of course). You can also use the full range of transform tools (Simple Rotations) on Smart Objects.

• Compress a bunch of layers into a single layer nondestructively. Unlike merging layers (Merging Layers), converting several layers into a single Smart Object preserves the original layers. This ability is super helpful if you want to edit several layers as if they were one, which is great for masking several layers at once, applying filters to a composite image, applying layer styles (Layer Styles), or using tools that work on only one ...