The Flexibility and Power of Smart Objects in Photoshop

If you are new to Photoshop, you might have heard of Smart Objects, but might be a bit unsure of what they do or why they are so useful. Smart Objects can be tremendously helpful, and this great video tutorial will show you how they work and what you can do with them.

Coming to you from Aaron Nace with Phlearn, this helpful video will teach you about Smart Objects and show you why they can be so useful. If you are not familiar with them, Smart Objects are layers that contains data from a raster or vector image, but that still preserve the original data. The reason this is so useful is that it allows you to do things like geometrically transform the layer while still being able to undo the change. You can also do things like add a blur filter and tweak the settings later on. While these capabilities are all quite great, Smart Objects are not perfect. For example, you can't make any pixel-level changes on a Smart Object, meaning tools like the Clone Stamp are not options. Nonetheless, for global-level edits, they offer quite a bit of flexibility and can be quite useful for a lot of post-processing work. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Nace. 

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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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