Thank you, everyone! All of your responses have been more than helpful for this issue and I definitely have a much much better understanding of what's going on. As I stated earlier, I'm relatively new to AI and so my experience with this software and the world of vector art is still fresh, and going back and forth between AI and PS is new territory for me. Your responses have helped tremendously so once again THANK YOU! ... View more

Yes, double clicking the smart object does open it in Illustrator. This was helpful because your response led me to discover other things, so thank you. I noticed that whenever I would paste a smart object into PS and zoom in I would see pixelated results, but if I scaled the smart object to a larger size it's edges would remain smooth, whereas placing an object as pixels would do the opposite. So yes, double clicking the object and seeing it open in AI did indeed confirm that it kept its properties. I've only been working in AI for about 2 months now so I'm still relatively new to this. But thank you for your response and pointing that out! ... View more