A Beginner's Guide to Smart Objects in Photoshop

If you're new to Photoshop, you may have heard of these mythical things called "Smart Objects." This helpful tutorial walks you through a very practical application of them to help you understand their role in image editing.

Coming to you from Anthony Morganti, this video follows him as he composites some birds into an existing image and uses smart objects to help match them to the new background. Smart Objects are useful because they retain the image's original content, which enables nondestructive editing to be done on the object. For example, notice how he needs to blur the birds a bit to make them match the way the lighthouse image was focused. Making the inserted birds a Smart Object allows him to readjust the blur later on. This is particularly helpful if you're making numerous adjustments that may affect each other and you need to return to an earlier one in the context of a latter change. 

If you'd like to dive into all the basics of photography and Photoshop, we're currently having a giant summer sale on tutorials, which includes 20 percent off "Photography 101: How to Use Your Digital Camera and Edit Photos in Photoshop" with the code "SUMMER20". 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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1 Comment

Great subject and example but just find the video very hard to stay awake to. Zzzz