Smart-Object improvements

[Andreas Resch]

I'm waiting for Smart-Objects improvements for years now and nothing happens. Are there any plans to work on them any more? This would be much more important for productivity than all the AI-nonsense we have seen lately.

Here are the biggest issues (at least for my workflow) ...
*) Let us define the scaling interpolation for Smart Objects. I still have to go into Preferences, change the interpolation, re-apply the transform every time I want to change it. That's not really great.
*) Have blend modes from inside the Smart Object being kept as they are. I don't want my "Multiply" layers turned into "Normal" ones when I convert my layers into Smart Objects.
*) Speed improvements. When working with many Samrt Objects the performance goes down significantly.

Maybe there's somebody at Adobe who shares my frustration. It's about time to do something about this. Take a break from AI.

[Stephen Marsh]

@Andreas Resch 

Until Adobe make changes, I wrote a script to address your first point:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/resize-smart-object-via-selectable-in...

As your post is tagged as a "discussion", Adobe staff may not even see it, if you like, perhaps a moderator could change it to an "idea".

[Andreas Resch]

Thanks for the script. I'll check it out.

[Andreas Resch]

Your script might not work in PS 2025 any longer.

[Stephen Marsh]

Your script might not work in PS 2025 any longer.

By @Andreas Resch

What makes you say that? Do you receive any errors etc? I gave it a quick run and it seems to work as intended...

Ah, it looks like the GUI dropdown interpolation method is ignored in some cases...

EDIT: @Andreas Resch – I have updated the code to a 1.2 version, thank you for bringing this to my attention.

[Andreas Resch]

Looks like it works now. Thanks. 
I've just commented the lines 165 to 168 out (the ones that check for the 100% scaling) so that I can apply the script to a smart object without scaling it and just changing the interpolation method.

[Stephen Marsh]

Looks like it works now. Thanks. 
I've just commented the lines 165 to 168 out (the ones that check for the 100% scaling) so that I can apply the script to a smart object without scaling it and just changing the interpolation method.

By @Andreas Resch

Wouldn't that be a null transform? The script only changes the interpolation while scaling (when the script is running), then it sets it back to what it was previously set in prefs.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

*) Have blend modes from inside the Smart Object being kept as they are. I don't want my "Multiply" layers turned into "Normal" ones when I convert my layers into Smart Objects.

If you are talking about multiple Layers of different Blend Modes being converted to one Smart Object then I see no way for that to be implemented with Smart Objects anytime soon. 

One Smart Object instance is one Layer and one Layer can only have one Blend Mode. 

[Andreas Resch]

I don't see it implemented any time soon either as I've been waiting for years to see it being addressed. Technically it should be no issue. Right now I have to create separate smart objects for the layers that use the "Normal" mode and the ones who use other blending modes. It's just very tedious.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Technically it should be no issue.

Quite the contrary, it would be a big issue; as mentioned previously: One Layer can only have one Blend Mode. 

Right now I have to create separate smart objects for the layers that use the "Normal" mode and the ones who use other blending modes. It's just very tedious.

Multiple instances of the same Smart Object with Layer Comps can be useful in such cases. 

[Andreas Resch]

Yeah. One Layer can only have one blend mode. But they could add the "Passthrough" mode to the Smart Object layer like the one the Group layer has. 

[c.pfaffenbichler]

But that is not what Photoshop Smart Objects are. 

I think to enable such behaviour they would need to be created anew from the ground up. 

Which would likely be labour-intensive and, at a minimum, cause backwards-compatibility issues. 

[Andreas Resch]

There are several approaches how it could be handled. But it surely can be done. It's nothing ridiculous. It would require some love for more basic functionality implementations which are really lacking recently. Can't remember when I was really excited about a Photoshop update.