Reusable pieces in PSD file

Question

I have a game where we are designing the in-game instructions. Our plan is to do this in Photoshop. There are common pieces/widgets that we have to construct portions of the screen. For example, think of a card with stats on it. The face of the card is the same, but some of the stats change. However details like the font, placement, color, font size, etc are the same.

We do a lot of work in Animate, and in Animate they have Symbols which allow us to reuse pieces.

Is there a way of being able to do this in Photoshop? For example a way of creating a folder or layer which can be "re-used" or "re-linked" to?

We are toying with the idea of making this work in Animate, but there are certain parts that would be better done using raster art (for visuals). I'm just trying to better understand potential solutions.

Thanks!

mglush · Accepted Answer

I agree with Chuck that smart objects are a good way to plan and execute your project. By first designing and creating the look of your pieces -- all the ones that will have the same style, color, font, look etc, you can then save it as a smart object and use it in your files. But just remember that whatever you do in a smart object will happen across ALL of them.

So, if you have a design element that you want to be the same create it as a smart object for the very fact that you can change one and all will change. But, you can also use your folders to hold all your images for each asset. By placing all of the parts to one "reusable" piece in one folder -- you have a "container" similar to what you have in Animate. Then just duplicate and rename the folder to create a similar asset.

It works a little differently in Photoshop but you can get similar functionality.

Let us know how it goes!

Michelle

Chuck Uebele · Answer

You can used linked or embedded smart objects, so you can have a folder full of files or parts that you can either link to current documents, and have all the linked smart objects being able to update to the same image, or use embedded smart objects so you can change the contents, only within that one document.

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