Kulturprodukt

Smart Objects in Photoshop

I have recently rediscovered Smart Objects in Photoshop partially thanks to a kind reminder from Joen. This is why I think they’re smart, and what I think would be really smart to add.

Smart Objects (SO’s) allow you to define any object in a PhotoShop document as a separate file so to speak. The separate file is then embedded in the document that you are working on. The cool thing is, that you can “compress” really complex objects into one SO in order to keep the main file manageable, while maintaining full control of the “compressed” object. SO’s can be scaled, transformed and filtered without damaging the SO itself.

Before I used SO’s as a way to embed Illustrator objects and similar. And pretty much only this. Now I all of the sudden find myself converting virtually everything into SO’s.

I started out with e.g. a standard button, converted it into an SO and then instanced it wherever I need it. This allow me to work focused on one small commonly used element of e.g. a user interface design at a time, and then flip back to the main comp to see how my changes impact on the overall design.

Next I realized that converting larger isolated areas of a UI design, e.g. the main menu, to an SO with numerous nested SO’s within, really gave a lot of advantages when maintaining one PSD with numerous layer comps of sub-designs in it.

Now I’m just wondering why you aren’t allowed to define a remote location for your Smart Objects, instead of the auto embed? I think it would be absolutely wonderful if I could define an SO in my document, set a remote location for it, and then allow other people in my team to access the same object.

Yes, I know that I can export an SO to a remote location, but I want the remote object to be the master object. Then I could have someone else work on the icons for a UI while I work at the buttons. The icons would update in my document, and the buttons would update in my colleagues document.

… So, when will we see this, Adobe?