P: Smart Objects with displace smart filter are Artifacting/Pixelating

[airwaves2]

Hi guys,

I have been searching everywhere for this issue and I've had no luck. I'm in the apparel printing business and recently I was assigned a project to create mockup templates that our merchandisers can use to place different artworks/designs on our garments for our online e-comm marketplaces.

I thought to set up a smart object layer and apply a distort >> displace smart filter to follow the folds of the garments and make the image look more realistic. That way, all the merchandisers would have to do is swap out the art.

My plan was working and it's the perfect solution to making quick product images, but my smart objects aren't always rendering properly. Sometimes I'll make a file and they're working perfectly normally, then I'll come back in a few weeks and open the same file again and this weird artifacting appears on the images. Sometimes the files work great for me, but the issue appears when the merchandisers try to use the files. I suspect it has something to do with the smart objects or the smart filter.

I cannot figure this one out, and I feel like I've exhausted Google with my searches. Please, has ANYONE also been experiencing this issue (screenshot attached)? Have you found any solutions? Is there a way we can sleuth this together? Here are my specs:

• Adobe Photoshop 22.5.1
• Mac OS Catalina 10.15.7
• MacBook Pro 2019; Memory: 16 GB 2667 HMz DDR4; Processor: 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9; Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 4 GB Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

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[J453]

Is the issue the pixelated bands across the checkerboard on the shirt?

Are the smart objects linked or embedded?

Could you post a PSD file you're having trouble with?

[airwaves2]

Yes, that's the issue. The checkerboard is the print area for our shirt/dress designs. I have it set up as a smart object, which I think is embedded in the file. I isolated this example for you to look at with one of our designs instead of the grid. Sometimes turning the smart filter on and off for the displacement with clear up the image, but if you do it a bunch it goes back to looking messed up. I also included the displacement map image for the smart filter. Let me know what you find out!

Thank you!

[J453]

This is great. I can see that simply turning the displace smart filter gives different results. I don't beleive that filter runs off a random seed. I will ask engineering to take a look.

[airwaves2]

Awesome! Let me know if they find a fix.