The late (great!) sci-fi author Douglas Adams once said, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Sadly, that "whooshing noise" is far too familiar, and in today's economically stressed world deadlines are mission critical. After all, to get money in your pocket you have to get projects out the door! Unfortunately for most creatives, the sun rises each day only to illuminate a mile-long to-do list and mountains of email. Heck, it's a wonder we're able to get out of bed at all!
Thankfully, Photoshop's Smart Objects make it easy for you to work smarter instead of harder, saving tons of time. In this tutorial you'll learn what a Smart Object is, why they're useful, and how you can use them to make some of the slickest photo templates you've ever seen. Then use what you've learned to create limitless smart effects of your own!
What's a Smart Object?
While Adobe refers to a Smart Object as a container, "miracle layer" is a better fit. Smart Objects (which debuted back in Photoshop CS2) let you work with all kinds of image files, even those that weren't created with Photoshop (think Camera Raw and vector files). When you open an image as a Smart Object, or place one in an existing document, Photoshop remembers everything about the original, including its size and file format. This lets you:
Resize content without losing quality. Instead of resizing the instance (a copy) of the content that you inserted into your document, Photoshop remembers information about the original, resizes that, and then places that information back into your image (leaving the actual original file safely unaltered). It doesn't matter whether that original lives elsewhere on your hard drive (a vector, Camera Raw file, and so on), or right there in your Photoshop document (on another layer, say). In the blink of an eye, Photoshop updates your document with the newly resized content. If it's a vector-based image, you can make it honkin' big and it won't look blocky. If it's a pixel-based image, be sure not to exceed the image's original size. And if you're running CS4, you can also use the full range of Transform commands on Smart Objects.
Compress a bunch of layers into a single layer nondestructively. Unlike merging layers, you can convert several layers into a single Smart Object and preserve the original layers. This is helpful if Photoshop's choking on the number of layers you've got in your document, or if you want to edit several layers as if they were one (such as when you're applying layer styles)
Run filters nondestructively. When you run a filter on a Smart Object, the filtering happens on a new layer. That way you can tweak or undo the effects of the filter. They even come with their own layer mask allowing you to hide the filter effect in certain areas. Look for more on Smart Filters in a future tutorial.
Update multiple instances of the same content. If you've placed the same content in several places in your document -- like a big logo in one spot and a smaller version of the same logo somewhere else -- and you make changes to the original file, Photoshop automatically updates it for you wherever it appears in your document. Sweet!
Swap content. Once you've formatted a Smart Object just right, you can swap its contents for another image, and the new image will take on the original's attributes. This is powerful magic when it comes to making creative templates that you can use over and over, but with different images (photographers love this kind of thing).
While the range of effects you can create with a Smart Object template is limitless, today you'll learn how to make one that converts a color image to black and white, gives it a sepia tint and a vignette. Here's how to do it.
Step 1
Fire up Photoshop and choose File > Open As Smart Object. Navigate to where the image lives on your hard drive and press Open (you can use a variety of file formats including Raw, JPEG, TIFF, EPS, etc.). Photoshop will then create a new document containing the image as a Smart Object (note the little Smart Object badge on the layer thumbnail circled below).
Step 2
Create a Black & White adjustment layer by using the new Adjustments panel in Photoshop CS4 (shown below at left), or by clicking the half black/half white circle at the bottom of the Layers panel (shown below at right).
Step 3
If you're using CS4, you'll see a set of sliders appear in the Adjustments panel. If you're using CS3, a dialog box will open containing the same set of sliders. In either case, you can tweak the color sliders until you get a high contrast, black and white image. NOTE: If you're in CS3, don't close the Black & White dialog box just yet!
Step 4
Next, you can add a sepia tint to your image. If you're in CS4, turn on the Tint checkbox at the top of the Adjustments panel (circled below). If you're in CS3, the Tint checkbox lives at the bottom of the Black & White Adjustment dialog box. If you'd like to change the color of the tint you can click the little color swatch to the right of the Tint checkbox in CS4, or by using the rainbow sliders at the bottom of the dialog box in CS3. In either case, the Color Picker will open letting you choose another color for the tint.
Step 5
Over in your Layers panel, click once to select the Smart Object photo layer and then choose Filters > Distort > Lens Correction. In the resulting petite dialog box (ha!), turn off the grid checkbox at the very bottom so you can see what the heck you're doing. Next, mouse over to the right side of the dialog box and locate the section called Vignette. Grab the Amount slider and drag it all the way to the left, and the edges of your image will immediately darken. To darken them a little more, drag the Midpoint slider slightly to the left. Click OK when you're finished.
Don't be alarmed that your image appears color in the filter's preview window. You're actually seeing the original image, sans the Black & White adjustment layer you created earlier.
Here's the final result:
Step 6
Save your template by choosing File > Save As and then give it a clever name like "My Way Cool Smart Sepia Template" and click Save.
Step 7
To swap photos, open the template, mouse over to your Layers panel and Ctrl-click (right-click on a PC) the Smart Object photo layer. Choose Replace Contents from the resulting menu, navigate to where the new image lives, and click Place.
Take a peek in your Layers panel and you'll see that the photo has indeed changed:
And you'll also see that the new photo has taken on all the effects of the original:
See how easy that was? There's no end to the creative templates you can make using Smart Objects in this manner. Sure, you could set up an action instead, but actions can be fussy and difficult to troubleshoot, whereas a Smart Object template couldn't be easier. As you can see, it's an extremely fast and flexible way to work.
Until next time, may the smart template force be with y'all!
Lesa Snider, chief evangelist of iStockphoto, is the author of Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual (Pogue Press/O'Reilly) (Pogue Press/OReilly, From Photo to Graphic Art, and Practical Photoshop Elements (KelbyTraining.com), and is the founder of GraphicReporter.com.
Photoshop Tutorial: Create a Smart Object Photo Template ...
By separating color and tone from texture detail, you can make quick work of tricky retouching jobs in Photoshop.
Three Image Photo Frame Template In Photoshop
In this Photoshop photo effects tutorial, well see how to easily convert the final result into a reusable template using Photoshops Smart Objects!
Create Photoshop Templates For Photo Effects
Learn how to create Photoshop templates for photo effects effect as a Photoshop template using Smart Objects and Photoshop tutorial is to show
Reusable templates with Photoshop Smart Objects - TipSquirrel
2013 in Video Tutorial // Photoshop Smart 2013 in Tutorial // Photoshop Photo to turn a DVD case and disc template into a reusable smart object
Adobe Photoshop * Create Smart Objects
edit duplicates of the Smart Object, or create a new layer. the edits appear in all linked instances of the Smart Object in the Photoshop document.
Free Photo Collage Template Using Smart Objects in Photoshop
Free Photo Collage Template Using Smart Objects in Photoshop. Download this beautiful free photo circle collage template in Photoshop. Free Tutorials
How to Make a Rippling Flag in Photoshop | CreativePro.com
you can use Photoshop to create a multi-purpose rippling flag, Make a Smart Object. Photoshop Tutorial: Create a Smart Object Photo Template. The late
Creating a Smart Object Template in Photoshop
Dave Cross demonstrates a simple yet powerful way to take advantage of Smart Objects in Photoshop, to create a reusable "template"
Learn how to create a circular photo collage in Photoshop ...
collage using smart objects in Adobe Photoshop. our tutorial. Step 1: Create a new Photoshop document Photo Collage Template Using Smart Objects in
Photoshop Tutorial: CREATING PHOTO EFFECTS TEMPLATES By ...
Photoshop Tutorial: CREATING PHOTO EFFECTS an image into a Smart Object in Photoshop, Before we can use our photo effect as a template, we first need to
Travelling is my life
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon