From the course: Photoshop 2020 Essential Training: Design

Replacing the contents of a Smart Object - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop 2020 Essential Training: Design

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Replacing the contents of a Smart Object

- [Instructor] This video picks up where my Photoshop Essentials Training course leads off. If you're unfamiliar with smart objects, please be sure to watch the two videos in the Smart Objects chapter in the Photoshop Essentials Training. Then join us here. I've also made a few changes to my panels. I've hidden all of the panels that we're not going to be using in a session so just know that if yours looks different, that's why. Now, there are a number of reasons that might need to change the contents of a smart object. Perhaps you're doing template work or maybe you need to swap out images, you might be creating a design and you're waiting for the high-res version or the final retouched photograph or maybe you simply want the flexibility to be able to return to an image and make nondestructive edits at any time. So let's go ahead and grab a smart object. I'll choose File, and then Place Embedded. Navigate to the Exercise Files to 01 Smart Objects and then place the Mountains.psd file. You can see that as Photoshop places a document, it's going to transform it automatically to fit within the canvas size of the open document that you're placing it into. I'll accept that transformation by clicking on the check mark but if you didn't want Photoshop to automatically scale it, you can go to the Photoshop, Preferences and General and then you could uncheck the Resize Image During Place. I prefer to keep that on so I'll leave it enabled but I should also mention that you could also choose to disable the fact that Photoshop always creates a smart object when placing but I actually want to take advantage of the smart object so I'll leave that on as well. All right, let's make a few changes to our images. I want to change the stacking order and put the clouds on top so I'll unlock that layer by clicking on the lock icon in the Layers panel. Then let's rename this to Clouds and I'll drag the clouds layer above the mountains to change the stacking order in the Layers panel. Then I'll change the blend mode for the clouds. Let's change it to Soft Light and maybe decrease the opacity down to somewhere around 50%. Then I want to flip the mountains layer, so I'll target it in the Layers panel. I'll choose Edit. And then Free Transform. Then I can right click or Control + Click on Mac and choose to flip this horizontally and before I apply it, I just want to point out that you'll notice that Photoshop kept track of the amount of scaling that was done when the file was placed. So if you ever need to know how much you're image was scaled when it was placed, you can just look up here in the transform. All right, let's apply that. And then I want to do one more thing. I just want to add a mask. So I'll choose Select All. And then quickly modify that by choosing Modify and then Contract and we'll contract that by about 50 pixels and I'll be sure to apply that effect at the canvas bounds so that it will make the changes to the selection that we have and then at the bottom of the Layers panel, I'll click on the Add Layer Mask icon. So let's say now I decide that I don't want the mountains layer and I want to replace it. Well, I could choose Layer, and then Smart Objects and then Replace Contents or I could just right click on the Mountains layer and then choose Replace Contents. We'll navigate to that same 01 Smart Objects and I'll double click on the Branches.psd in order to replace the contents. Photoshop kept not only the scale or the transformation but also the flip as well as the mask. So as your files get more complicated, the ability to replace the contents of a smart object can really be a great time saver, especially if you're collaborating with other people on the design and you don't have the final artwork. One thing to note, if you do have different size original files, then you might need to resize them when you replace the contents but because they're smart objects, the transformations will be nondestructive.

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