Participant

Question

":" in Smart Object layer name gets replaced with "-"

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
May 8, 2019
4 replies
675 views

I am working with multiple .psds where the layers names are required to be specific. Part of the required names of the layers includes a colon in the name. After converting the layer to a smart object, if a change to the smart object is made and is saved, the original smart object layer is changed where the colon has been replaced with a dash.

To add to the oddity of this, if the dash is changed back to a colon and a change is made to the smart object and saved, the colon does not get replaced. Photoshop only seems to have an issue with the colon in the name the first time the smart object is save with a change.

While it is simple enough to revert the dash back to a colon, I would like to understand the root cause and maybe prevent it from happening in the first place as there are a lot of layers in multiple psds where this will be an issue.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

barbara_a7746676

Community Expert

My understanding is that you are trying to name a smart object layer, not to name a file. If that is the case, there are no restricted or illegal characters in layer names, only for file names.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

As others have mentioned, a colon is a restricted character, as, at least, on Win systems, whatever is before the colon is the drive name or letter. When you create the smart object the first time, it changes the name due to the fact that it saving that layer name as a file name. Once you create the SO layer, the file name doesn't change, even if you change the name of the SO layer, as no new file is created - it's using the originally created file name. If you actually need the colon in the file name, a script could fix that issue, where it stores the original layer name, then creates the SO, then renames the new SO layer with the original file name.

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dsit_artAuthor

Participant

That makes sense. What is odd is we've been using this process where I work for quite a while and haven't run into this issue before. I am starting to wonder if it is something with our systems that have changed rather than Photoshop itself as we are seeing it over different versions of Photoshop on different machines. This may explain why other respondents to this thread are unable to replicate.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

It could be your system. If you were using a MAC, it might have not been an issue, until they might be trying to be more cross platform compliant. I would imagine that it has always been an issue with Win.

barbara_a7746676

Community Expert

I'm not able to replicate this behavior in a smart object layer. Can you explain what type of smart object layer you have -- is it vector, is it a placed image, was it created in Photoshop and converted to a smart object layer?

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

I thought that the colon : character was an illegal filename charactor on both Mac and Windows OS’s.

D

DaveJCummings

Community Expert

Same here, I thought it was an illegal character as well

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dsit_artAuthor

Participant

Fair enough, though it seems odd to me that it would only replace the colon with dash on the first time the smart object is saved. Photoshop seems to be able to handle that character in the layer name after it is manually reverted back to a colon.

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