The Photoshop Productivity Series: The Productive Workflow

Smart Filters

Remember when I talked about adjustment layers and the “evil” OK button? The same thing applies with filters: Using filters in the traditional way—that is, not using Smart Filters—requires you to click OK at some point, which makes the results pretty permanent. You can, of course, undo the filter right away. But what happens if you perform eight more steps and then want to change the filter settings?

Some people suggest that one solution is to duplicate the Background layer before applying a filter. Although that does work in that it protects the original image, it still doesn’t mean you can edit the settings—or even figure out later what settings you used. In contrast, as we’ll see, a Smart Filter appears in the Layers panel, allowing ...