How to Use Smart Objects in Photoshop – Day 16

Smart Objects Are Containers, and That Changes Everything

Smart Objects have come up on nearly every day of this series, usually as a single instruction at the start of a tutorial. This is the day that explains why.

The short version: a Smart Object is a Photoshop document living inside another Photoshop document. What you see on the canvas is a rendered preview, and everything you do to it — scale, rotate, distort, filter — is stored as instructions applied to that preview rather than as damage to the original.

The Resolution Test Worth Running Once

Bring the same image in twice. Leave one as a Smart Object and rasterize the other (Layer > Rasterize > Smart Object). Scale both down to almost nothing, then scale both back up to full size.

The rasterized copy comes back as mush. The Smart Object comes back exactly as it was. It never actually got smaller — the file inside it stayed full resolution the whole time, and Photoshop simply re-rendered the preview at the new size.

Do this once yourself. It is a thirty-second demonstration that will change how you work permanently.

Filters Become Smart Filters

Apply a Gaussian Blur to a rasterized layer and the blur is now those pixels. There is no amount to change, no way back except undo.

Apply the same blur to a Smart Object and it appears beneath the layer as a Smart Filter. Toggle its eye icon to compare, double-click its name to reopen the dialog with your settings intact, or drag it to the bin to remove it entirely.

This applies to almost every filter in Photoshop, including Camera Raw and Liquify. A single conversion before you start makes an entire session of filter work reversible.

Place the Advertisement on the Billboard

1. Scale and Distort It Into Perspective

   Drag the artwork in. Drop the layer opacity so you can see the billboard underneath, press Ctrl/Cmd + T, and hold Ctrl/Cmd while dragging each corner until it matches the angle of the panel.

2. Select the Panel With the Magic Wand

   Hide the artwork, click the background layer, take the Magic Wand and raise Tolerance to around 200. One click on the blank panel selects the whole thing — a high tolerance is right here because the panel is one broad, slightly uneven tone.

3. Turn the Selection Into a Mask

   Turn the artwork back on and click the layer mask icon. It now exists only inside the billboard.

Double-Click to Edit What Is Inside

Double-click a Smart Object’s thumbnail and its contents open in a new tab as their own document. Anything you do there — add type, add layers, mask things — flows back to the composite when you save.

In the example that means building the ad itself: a headline set with Dynamic Text, masked behind the subject with Select Subject, and faded into the sky with a second mask made from Color Range. Two masks doing two different jobs on one type layer.

The JPEG Save Warning, and What to Do About It

Press Ctrl/Cmd + S inside a Smart Object whose original was a JPEG and Photoshop objects, because a JPEG cannot hold layers. The message is confusingly worded and the answer is simple.

1. Save As a PSD Instead

   File > Save As, choose Photoshop format, and put it somewhere you can find again. Your layered design now exists as a real file on disk.

2. Go Back to the Composite and Relink

   Select the Smart Object layer, then Layer > Smart Objects > Relink to File and choose the PSD you just saved.

3. Everything Survives

   The mask, the perspective distortion and the scaling all stay exactly as they were. Only the source file changed.

The Smart Objects Submenu

Edit Contents

The same as double-clicking the thumbnail.

Reset Transform

Undoes every scale, rotation and distortion at once and returns the object to its original size. Useful when a series of transforms has gone somewhere strange.

Relink to File

Points the container at a different file on disk while keeping every transform and mask. This is the one above.

Replace Contents

Swaps the embedded contents for another file, again preserving your transforms. The route for mockup templates where the artwork changes but the placement does not.

Export Contents

Writes what is inside back out as its own file.

Now Every Save Updates the Composite

Once the Smart Object is linked to a PSD, the two documents are joined. Change the headline size in the ad, press Ctrl/Cmd + S, and the billboard updates. Move the text, save, and it updates again.

That loop is the real argument for linked Smart Objects. Any asset that will be revised repeatedly — a logo across a set of mockups, artwork in a template, a graphic used in several compositions — belongs in a linked file rather than pasted in over and over.

Bonus: Put the Real Reflections Back

The composite is convincing but flat, because a real billboard has light and reflections across its surface. Those exist in the original photograph, they are just very faint.

1. Load the Mask as a Selection and Copy the Background

   Ctrl/Cmd-click the advertisement’s layer mask to select that shape, click the background layer, and press Ctrl/Cmd + J to copy just that area to a new layer.

2. Move It Above and Clip It

   Ctrl/Cmd + ] to raise it to the top, then Alt/Opt + Ctrl/Cmd + G to clip it to the advertisement so it can only show where the ad shows.

3. Set It to Screen

   Screen keeps light pixels and drops dark ones. Right now the layer is almost entirely near-white, so almost all of it shows — which is why the next step matters.

4. Convert It and Crush It With Levels

   Convert to a Smart Object, then Ctrl/Cmd + L. Drag the black point well to the right and move the midpoint until only the brightest streaks survive. What is left is the actual reflection pattern of the real panel.

5. Dial It Back

   Lower the layer opacity until it is barely there. Because you ran Levels on a Smart Object, you can double-click it later and adjust exactly how much reflection comes through.

It is a subtle effect and it is the thing that sells the composite — light that belongs to the real scene, sitting on top of the thing you added.

The One Real Cost

Smart Objects make files bigger, because the original data is stored alongside the composite. That is the whole downside. For anything you intend to resize, filter or revise, it is not close to a fair trade — take the file size.

Build the Billboard

Download the sample images and do the whole thing: place, distort, mask, edit the contents, save as PSD, relink, then change the design and watch the composite follow. The relink workflow is the part that feels awkward the first time and obvious the second.

Tomorrow, Day 17 gets into Blend If. If you want to go much deeper here, our PRO Ultimate Guide to Smart Objects in Photoshop is built entirely around them.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Rasterize for the testLayer > Rasterize > Smart Object
• Smart FilterFilter > Blur > Gaussian Blur on a Smart Object; double-click the filter to change it
• Distort into placeCmd/Ctrl + T, Cmd/Ctrl-drag each corner; Magic Wand at Tolerance 200, then the layer mask icon
• Edit and saveDouble-click the thumbnail; File > Save As a PSD
• RelinkLayer > Smart Objects > Relink to File; then Cmd/Ctrl + S in the PSD updates the composite
• Copy the reflectionsCmd/Ctrl-click the mask, Cmd/Ctrl + J, Cmd/Ctrl + ], clip with Cmd/Ctrl + Alt/Option + G
• Keep only the lightBlend mode Screen, convert to Smart Object, Cmd/Ctrl + L: black point and midpoint right, lower opacity