a Dr t Oi sWt sN U N D E R Australia and New Zealand
SOME PHOTOSHOP INSPIRATION SMART OBJECTS By Andrew Haysom
A Smart Object in Photoshop is essentially a layer that can contain another entire Photoshop file. The contents of a Smart Object can be a Raw image, a single pixel (rasterized) layer, or any combination of any number of Photoshop layers. You can tell that a layer is a Smart Object by the presence of a small icon in the bottom right corner of the layer thumbnail (see Figure 1).
[Figure 1 – Smart Object icon] When opening an image (Raw, JPG or TIFF) from Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) into Photoshop you can choose whether to open it as a Smart Object or as a normal pixel layer. The Open button in ACR will either say Open or Open Object depending on a preference setting in ACR preferences. In Figure 2 you will note that I have my preference set so the button shows Open Object. You can switch the behaviour from Open Object to Open (and vice versa) by holding down the [Shift] key.
[Figure 2 – Adobe Camera Raw window]
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