Photoshop: Smart Object Liquify - Restrict mesh to layer bounds

Report · Jan 23, 2014

An option to restrict Liquify mesh to layer bounds on a smart object would be a massive time saver for us, smart liquify has good potential but is too susceptible to the mesh shifting position when changing canvas size and even importing layers from other documents with a different canvas size.

problem/solution stems from this thread: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1113544

"jworthin wrote:

Currently the mesh is resized to the document bounds.

If we added capability, how could Liquify know if the user wanted to see the entire document bounds or just the layer bounds? Does it matter? Could Liquify only show the layer bounds and not the document bounds in future versions? Would this negatively affect any other user work flows?

What if Liquify was to detect a change in the (document or layer) bounds relative to the loaded SO mesh and pop a dialog asking the user how to handle the change, ie scale the old mesh to fit, fill new areas with new mesh, or ??

Thoughts?"

Report · Mar 02, 2014

The way it works right now only creates disastrous problems during editing. Not only changing document size or re-cropping messes up this smart filter but resizing layer or even simple moving layer around document messes up liquify!
The only reason people don't complain about it as much is they should is because they don't realise what's happening with it. I bet noone expects that after applying liquify this way you shouldn't move this layer.

Report · Aug 01, 2015

Ran into this problem myself.

I straighten out a lot of creases on a blouse (liquify on a smart object), before I realised I needed to increase the canvas size at the bottom of my image. Et voila, liquify completely destroyed.

In hindsight I should've increased my canvas and done that fix at the beginning of my workflow, but it would've been nice if the liquify mesh wasn't stretched, but instead added to, when increasing canvas size.

Report · Jan 10, 2016

I support this idea 101%!

At the company I work for, we use Liquify on a daily basis, sometimes we spend more than half our day with that tool. Solving this issue would be an enormous time saver for all of us. We really need this feature.

Restricting the Liquify mesh to its layer's bounds is the way to go. Cropping should NEVER affect it (actually, this way it would never have to be recalculated, so the cropping operation would go faster). It makes no sense to do so, since you are modifying the mesh in Liquify entirely based on the pixels of the SO layer you see - if the pixels aren't rescaled, the Liquify mesh shouldn't be rescaled either. I don't see how this could affect negatively anyone in any way.

SHOWING the document bounds in the Liquify window is fine, you might want to see a backdrop from outside the SO layer's bounds. It's simply the MESH bounds that have to be restricted to the SO layer.

Detecting a change in the bounds of the SO when it is updated and prompting the user whether they want to rescale the Liquify mesh or just "fill it/crop it" is another great idea - after all that's why you are using a SO, so you can modify its contents at a later point.

Report · Apr 03, 2016

This is not a fix but a work around until it's updated: if you use "Lock All" on the layer(s) before canvas resizing, the mesh will not be updated.

Report · Apr 13, 2016

That doesn't really work unfortunately. Tried it on both PC and MAC, the Liquify mesh is still scaled to the canvas. The only real workaround is to convert the layer to yet another smart object: when your Liquify smart filter is inside that smart object, you can crop and transform all you want.

Report · Nov 16, 2016

I also ran into this problem. Moreover, due to some task-specific restrictions the workaround with the smart-object-inside-smart-object is not a solution for me. So, the proposed way with additional option for the Liquify smart filter will be highly appreciated.
By the way, it is very disappointing that such an issue was already noted by Adobe staff as "high priority known bug" here (https://forums.adobe.com/message/6271379#6271379) in aug 2014, but nothing has been happened since then on this issue.

I hope, more correct behaviour will be implemented in future updates.

Report · Jan 03, 2017

Liquify as a Smart Filter is definitively a long waited feature but I found an issue with it.
I made smart object from a layer, applied Liquify, next I change the document Ratio with Crop Tool...You see, completely different pixels are liquified now. Disappointing 😞

Report · Jan 03, 2017

Liquify lose its vector coordinates when converted to smart object if its applied as smart filter. I've noticed it in recent versions of photoshop and that caused a lot of damage. It happens only when you convert few layers to smart object and one of them exceeds crop boundaries of the file. It wasn't the issue before.

Before conversion to smart object:

After the conversion:

Report · Jan 03, 2017

ITS A BUG REPORT! Not an "idea"...

Report · Nov 18, 2020

Using the crop tool can alter the effects of Liquify Filter that have been applied to a smart layer. This occurs without warning and can drastically alter work that has been saved to a layered file. The only ways to restore the Liquify result is either to revert the file to a version saved BEFORE using Crop Tool, or to reset the crop tool to the exact original boundaries of the file.

This can also occur if a smart layer with Liquify FX is drag copied to another file.

Liquify should have an option to link applied FX to the affected Smart Layer so the exact FX are preserved if the file is cropped, or if the Liquify layer is copied to another file of different dimensions.