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Question

What are smart objects?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 1, 2017
2 replies
1791 views

I wanted to know what a smart object was. Does this have anything to do with changing a raster image to a vector image? I have a rastor image that I want to change to a vector.

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c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Does this have anything to do with changing a raster image to a vector image?

No.

Please post the image or a screenshot.

Photoshop Smart Objects can be embedded or linked files.

The advantages of Smart Objects are numerous:

• external files can be referenced and represented in layered documents

• multiple instances of a SO in a containing document that update simultaneously on saving an edited SO (please note that for a SO to maintain a connection to the external file one needs to use File > Place Linked instead of File > Place Embedded)

• the possibility of placing vector content as Vector Smart Objects (though this will output as pixels)

• non-destructive application of Filters

• non-destructive application of transformation, warp, puppet warp (not all of these are available for Vector SO, but by converting such a one to a regular SO they become applicable)

• combination of elements of different color spaces and bit depths

• the ability to Replace Contents of SO (for example when faking as-of-yet non-existent products by mapping packaging design elements onto images of a blank container and the design is likely to change)

• Stack Modes for certain combinations of photographic images

rayek.elfin

Legend

c.pfaffenbichler wrote
The advantages of Smart Objects are numerous:
• external files can be referenced and represented in layered documents
• multiple instances of a SO in a containing document that update simultaneously on saving an edited SO (please note that for a SO to maintain a connection to the external file one needs to use File > Place Linked instead of File > Place Embedded)
• the possibility of placing vector content as Vector Smart Objects (though this will output as pixels)
• non-destructive application of Filters
• non-destructive application of transformation, warp, puppet warp (not all of these are available for Vector SO, but by converting such a one to a regular SO they become applicable)
• combination of elements of different color spaces and bit depths
• the ability to Replace Contents of SO (for example when faking as-of-yet non-existent products by mapping packaging design elements onto images of a blank container and the design is likely to change)
• Stack Modes for certain combinations of photographic images

As with everything in life, Smart Objects have a number of caveats as well:

SOs open in a new window and cannot be edited in-place, which is rather cumbersome and awkward at times;
Photoshop doesn't provide a default setting to open SOs side by side with the master document;
changing the content in a SO does not cascade in real-time or without saving to the master document;
the fact that a SO is required at all to accomplish non-destructive layer transformations is, at the very least, inconvenient, and a workflow-breaker at its worst.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

SOs open in a new window and cannot be edited in-place, which is rather cumbersome and awkward at times;

For the time being I think in-place editing is hardly possible in an effective way not only for performance reasons (in particular if many instances of the SO exist) but also because a Smart Object may have been transformed, filtered multiple times and furthermore differ in Color Space, bit depth, resolution, aspect ratio, … from the containing document.

That being said I don’t share the unease some people seem to have with editing Smart Objects as separate documents, but that may be owed to practice and not being familiar with a »better way«.

But if another application or some future version of Photoshop should be able to address all the performance and geometry related issues then so much the better.

Manuhart

Participating Frequently

Smart Objects are layers that can save images losslessly when scaling down and up. Some effects are also non-destructive since their parameters are stored and can be changed later.

On the other hand you lose some features, mostly colour tools. For example Hue or Levels become unavailable.

Derek Cross

Community Expert

Are you sure Hue and Levels are not available?

Manuhart

Participating Frequently

Derek Cross, in my experience those tools are not usable with smart objects.

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