Working smarter in Photoshop

A great non destructive way to transform images on working on designs that use repeatable content.

Using Smart Objects

Smart Objects are a great non destructive way to transform images on working on designs that use repeatable content.

• You can also transform and add filters to Smart Objects without losing the original image data or quality. This is a non-destructive editing and can be removed at any time.
• You can duplicate a Smart Object many times within your file and only have to update one for it to update all instances.

How to create a Smart Object

Illustrator files
‘Placing’ or pasting objects from Illustrator such as icons or illustrations as Smart Objects is a way to keep the flexibility of a vector-based object. You can resize the object without the fear of quality loss. You can apply changes via Illustrator. You save it, close it and it’s updated in Photoshop.

Photoshop layers
Select all the layers that you want making into a Smart Object.
Right Click > Convert to Smart Object

Pros

• If something is getting reused elsewhere on the page or in another file, make it a Smart Object.
• Use them for placeholder content, buttons, icons, backgrounds, separators, etc.
• Share them across comps (just remember to update them all if something changes). However in the latest Photoshop CC 2014 you can use a Linked Smart object which are stored as a separate file, so if you make an update the changes are rolled out to all PSDs that contain it.

Cons

• Using Smart Objects increases the file size a lot and can slow down the performance of Photoshop.

TOP TIP

Smart Object Via Copy

If you need to duplicate a Smart Object but you want to make sure that the two instances are not linked with a shared source file you should use the Smart Object Via Copy feature. This way you can separate the duplicate layer from the original Smart Object. The only disadvantage to this technique is that it will increase your file size.

Resources

Using a Grid

• An extension to install into Photoshop that helps you create custom guides for your files without you having to work out the calculationshttp://guideguide.me/
• The Grid System is an ever-growing resource where graphic designers can learn about grid systems, the golden ratio and baseline grids.
  http://www.thegridsystem.org/

Go Non-Destructive

• Using Smart Objects in Photoshop
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• Using masks
• Using Smart Filters

Work smarter

Smart Objects and Layer Comps in Photoshop CC 2014
http://bjango.com/articles/photoshopcc2014smartobjects/

Whole Pixel Value for Fonts

(no transforming)

#hex/RGB values

(no color picker)

Cleaning up files

(deleting layer script)

Make a template for UI elements

Proofread Your Work

Further Reading

Genius ways to use Photoshop Smart Objects / Mindy Wagner
Smart Objects / Bjango