Quicklinks to all course lessons: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Lesson 4 sections: 4-1 4-2 4-3 4-4 4-5 4-6 4-JFF 4-IDEA
Lesson 4 sections: 4-1 4-2 4-3 4-4 4-5 4-6 4-JFF 4-IDEA
A04-03: Smart objects and creating reusable Photoshop templates
Objectives:
- Learn about Photoshop smart objects in depth, and how they can save you time in your own workflow.
- Create a reusable Photoshop template file that uses smart objects.
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Learn:
Smart Objects are layers that contain image data from raster or vector images, such as Photoshop or Illustrator files. Smart Objects preserve an image's source content with all its original characteristics, enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer. Let's begin with some excellent video tutorials about Photoshop's smart objects. You will learn more in depth how to use this powerful feature and add more flexibility to your workflow. The tutorials will definitely help you understand how smart objects work, and show you several ways you can use them in your own workflow to save yourself time and effort. Please click each of the five in their order to watch them. |
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Apply: Exercise A04-03: Create a reusable Photoshop template using smart objects:
Smart objects are great time savers! For example, you could create a wedding announcement using smart objects, save it as a Photoshop template, and reuse it again and again. Download the exercise file. It contains wedding related photos and backgrounds I found on the internet, or you can use your own. From what you've learned in the tutorials above, can you design a wedding template, making the photo a smart object? Then replace the photo with one of the others by going to the Layers menu, Smart Objects, and Replace Contents. Need help? Here's the Photoshop file I created - Template.psdt - and a YouTube Demonstration on how to create it (Captioned). This exercise will be turned in as part of the lesson 4 exercises assignment. Save your file as a Photoshop file with all the layers and smart objects in place. Name your file A04-03_Your_Name.psd. |
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Wedding template using smart objects
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Same template, different photo and text.
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Learn and Apply: Warping text layer smart objects.
A smart object allows you to do some things in Photoshop that normally would be greyed out in the menus. Let me show you what I mean. Watch this short YouTube demonstration (Captioned). Now create a word using the text tool in Photoshop. Convert the text layer into a smart object. Add a wind filter a couple of times to get this effect. Now double click on the smart object, and you can edit the text to something else. Save and close the file, and you'll see that your wind filter was retained. You can also do a free transformation, choose warp, and warp text (something you can't do with a regular text layer). Please try this out, but it doesn't need to be submitted in the lesson 4 assignment. |
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