Share artboards between files

[AmazingWorldAdventures]

I'm illustrating a series of children's picture books. I need to show some of the characters many times in multiple different poses. I also need their appearance to remain very consistent throughout. For that reason, I've started a file for each character. Within each of those files, I have multiple artboards. Each artboard contains the character in a different pose. The idea being that, when I need a pose similar to that one, I could copy-paste or otherwise import it into the file for the book I'm working on. Then just make slight adjustments for the scene.

My problem is, I've been stymied trying to actually do this. When I copy-paste, it only pastes a path onto a layer mask but loses all the details. When I try to place embedded, it brings in ALL the artboards with all the poses. There there doesn't seem to be a way to pick just the one I want.

I really don't want to have dozens of separate files. I'm trying to build an easy, convenient resource library.

One more thing, I'm doing all of this in Photoshop. I know that Illustrator is better for drawing and InDesign for the book layout. However, at the moment I have to deal with budget concerns. For my purposes, Photoshop will do everything Illustrator will.

The question is whether what I want to do is even possible. Can I do it in Photoshop? Or will I have to use InDesign or some other tool?

To recap:

• Two files, each with multiple artboards.
• I want to pull just a single artboard from one of the files and embed it onto a single artboard in the other.
• I will do this multiple times but always pulling just one artboard at a time.

[ moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Photoshop by moderator ]

[davescm]

Hi

With both docs open (the easist to see is with Window arrange tile vertical/horizontal) , select the move tool.

In the layers panel - highlight all the layers within the artboard in document one that you want to move to the artboard in document two. Drag those layers from the layers panel in document one onto the chosen artboard in document two (not the layers panel)  and release.

Dave

[AmazingWorldAdventures]

I tested out both this method and the one suggested by Michael Bullo (below) and both work. Thanks so much!

There is one caveat with this one: be careful to select only the LAYERS within an artboard and not also the artboard itself. Otherwise, you will embed a new artboard.

[Michael Bullo]

An alternative workflow you might want to explore involves the Libraries panel if you haven't seen it.

Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries

Within Photoshop is a Libraries panel that can hold many libraries. In turn, a library can hold everything from colours to artwork. You could potentially create a library for each character.

Thumbnail previews of all of the artwork are shown within the Libraries panel. You could have this panel tucked off to the side in Photoshop allowing you to quickly drag out whatever pose you need whenever you want without having to open files and go looking for artboards.

[AmazingWorldAdventures]

I tested both this method and the one suggested by davescm (above). Both work perfectly. I like this one a bit better because I don't have to keep the second file that is the source for my library images open and I don't have to sacrifice screen space viewing both at once. The Libraries panel is now a permanent part of my workspace!

[Michael Bullo]

Cheers. Thanks for the update.

Another cool thing about Libraries is you can do a lot of work with them in Bridge. You may find this a preferable place to create and edit your libraries.