Transcript:
Hey, everyone, Steve Patterson. Here from Photoshop Essentialscom. In this video, I’ll show you how to edit a smart object And how to replace its contents in Photoshop. Two powerful advantages of using smart objects are that we can edit their contents and we can even replace their contents and have our changes instantly appear in the document. Editing the contents is great for when you want to keep the same image inside the smart object and just change its appearance. But we can also replace the contents with a completely new image, making smart objects perfect for creating reusable templates. Let’’s see how it works. I’’ll be using Photoshop CC, but everything here is fully compatible with Photoshop CS6. If you’’re not yet familiar with smart objects, be sure to check out the previous video in this series, where I cover what smart objects are and how to create them. And with that let’’s get started. To help us learn about editing and replacing a smart object’’s contents, I’’m going to convert an image into a smart object and then place it inside a frame. Once it’’s in the frame, we’’ll learn how to edit the image inside the smart object and then how to replace it with a different image. Here’’s the first image I’’ll be using. This is the frame that I’’ll be placing the other image into. I downloaded all of the images for this tutorial from Adobe Stock. If we look in the Layer’s panel, we see that I also have a second image sitting on a layer above it. I’’ll turn the second image on by clicking the top layer’’s visibility icon. And now we see the second image I’’ll convert this image into a smart object and then place it inside the frame. So to place the image into the frame, we first need to select the area inside the frame. I’’ll, turn the top image off, so we can see the frame by once again. Clicking the Layer’’s visibility icon? Then I’’ll choose Photoshop’’s Polygonal Lasso Tool from the Toolbar By default it’s nested behind the standard Lasso Tool, so I’ll right-click or Control-click on a Mac on the Lasso Tool and I’’ll choose the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the fly-out menu To select the area inside the frame I’ll zoom in on the image, and then all we need to do is click with the Polygonal Lasso Tool. In each of the four corners starting in the upper left, then the upper right down to the bottom right and then in the bottom left. To complete the selection, I’ll click again on the starting point in the upper left corner, I’ll zoom out to fit the image on the screen by going up to the View menu and choosing Fit on Screen. And now we see the selection outline around the inside of the frame. With the frame selected I’’ll turn the top image back on and the same selection outline now appears in front of the second image. In a moment, we’’re going to place this image into the selection using a layer mask. But before we do, we first need to convert the layer into a smart object. To do that I’ll, right-click or Control-click on a Mac directly on the layer and then I’’ll choose Convert to Smart Object from the menu. A smart object icon appears in the layer’’s preview thumbnail, telling us that the layer is now a smart object. To place the smart object into the selection. We’’ll use a layer mask. Click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layer’s panel. Photoshop converts the selection into a layer mask and now the image appears inside the frame. And in the Layers panel, we see the new layer mask thumbnail beside the preview thumbnail. The reason we converted the layer into a smart object before adding the layer mask was to keep the smart object and the mask separate from each other. If we had added the mask and then converted the layer to a smart object, the mask would have become part of the smart object. We need to keep them separate, so we converted the layer to a smart object first and then added the mask. And the reason we need to keep them separate is so we can resize and reposition the smart object within the mask. To do that, click the link icon between the smart object’’s preview thumbnail and the layer mask thumbnail. This unlink’s the smart object from its mask, so we can resize and reposition the smart object without affecting the size or position of the mask itself. Select the smart object by clicking its thumbnail and then go up to the Edit menu in the Menu Bar and choose Free, Transform To resize the image within the frame press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard and then click and drag any of the corner handles The Shift key locks the aspect ratio of the image as you drag, so you don’’t distort the original shape. To move the image inside the frame, click anywhere inside the Free Transform box and drag the image into place. When You’’re done, click the checkmark in the Options Bar to accept it. So now that we’ve placed the image into the frame as a smart object, Let’s learn how to edit the smart object’’s contents. Think of a smart object as a Photoshop document within your Photoshop document And pretty much anything we can do in the main document we can do in a smart object. To open a smart object and edit its contents. Make sure your smart object is selected in the Layer’s panel, Then go up to the Layer menu in the Menu Bar, choose Smart Objects and then choose Edit Contents. Or a faster way to open a smart object is to simply double-click on its thumbnail in the Layer’s panel. The smart object opens in its own separate document. If we look in the tabs along the top, we see that the name of my smart object’’s document is “Photopsb”. Smart objects use a special type of document known as a PSB file, which stands for “photoshop Big”. The name of the document (in this case “Photo”) is based on the name of your layer before you converted it to a smart object, which is why it’’s a good idea to rename your layers before converting them. Since smart objects are actual Photoshop documents. There’’s really no limit to what we can do with them. All of Photoshop’s tools, commands filters and other features like layers and adjustment layers are available to us for editing a smart object’’s contents. Let’’s look at a few quick examples of what we can do. Let’’s say I want to flip the image inside the frame, so that she’’s facing the opposite direction. I can do that by flipping the image in my smart object. I’’ll, go up to the Edit menu, then I’’ll choose Transform and then Flip Horizontal. This flips the image horizontally. To have our changes appear in the main document, we need to save and close the smart Object’’s document. To save it, go up to the File menu and choose Save, Then to close the smart object, go back up to the File menu and choose Close Back in the main document, the smart object in the frame updates to show the flipped version of the image. Now, just like when editing a normal Photoshop document, it’’s best to edit a smart object non-destructively and avoid making any permanent changes. One of the easiest ways to do that is by taking advantage of adjustment layers. I’’ll reopen my smart object by double-clicking on is thumbnail in the Layer’s panel. The contents reopen in the same “Photopsb” document and with the change that I made previously. I’’ll flip the image back to the way it was originally by once again, going up to the Edit menu, choosing Transform and then choosing Flip Horizontal. This flips the image back to its original direction. So let’’s say I want to convert the image from color to black and white. Since smart objects are Photoshop documents, we can use adjustment layers inside them, just like we can in a normal document. To convert the image to black and white I’ll, click on the New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layer’s panel, and then I’ll choose Black & White from the list. A Black & White adjustment layer appears above the photo and we see the image now in black and white You can customize the black and white conversion using the sliders in the Properties panel, but for our purposes. I’’ll stick with the default settings. To save my changes, I’’ll go up to the File menu and choose Save And then to close the smart object. I’’ll go back up to the File menu and choose Close And back in the main document, we see that the smart object in the frame has once again updated this time showing my black and white version of the image. What if instead of converting it to black and white, I just want to adjust the colors in the image to cool them down a bit. For that, we can use a Photo. Filter adjustment layer I’ll once again, reopen my smart object by double-clicking on its thumbnail. And then, in the smart object’’s document, I’’ll delete my Black & White adjustment layer by dragging it down onto the Trash Bin at the bottom of the Layer’s panel. Since adjustment layers are non-destructive, deleting the adjustment layer instantly restores the original colors in the image. To add a Photo Filter adjustment layer. I’ll again, click the New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon and this time I’ll choose Photo Filter from the list. The new adjustment layer appears above the image. In the Properties panel, I’’ll choose one of the cooling filters from the Filter menu. This cools down the image by adding more blue, We can toggle the adjustment layer on and off to see a before, and after comparison by clicking its visibility icon Here’’s the image before applying the Photo Filter and here’s after Again before and after. I’’ll save my changes by going up to the File menu and choosing Save, Then I’’ll close the smart object by going up to the File menu and choosing Close Back in the main document, the image in the frame now appears with the Photo Filter applied And that’s the basics of how to edit a smart object. So now that we know how to edit the contents, let’s learn how to replace the contents of a smart object. Replacing the contents means we can use smart objects as templates for different layouts or effects. We already have our smart object in the frame, so let’’s see how to replace the image inside the smart object with a different image. First, make sure you have your smart object selected in the Layer’s panel. There’’s no need to open it. We just need to select it. To replace its contents, go up to the Layer menu, choose Smart Objects and then choose Replace Contents Navigate to the image that you want to replace the contents with. Click on it to select it and then click Place And just like that. The original image in the smart object is replaced with the new image. The only problem is that the new image is too big to fit in the frame. So to resize it, I’’ll do the same thing. I did with my previous image by going up to the File menu and then choosing Free Transform This places the Free Transform box and handles around the image. But because this new image is so big, some of the handles extend off the screen. To fit them on the screen. I’’ll go up to the View menu and choose Fit on Screen, Then I’ll press and hold my Shift key as I drag. The corner handles to resize the image, so it fits in the frame Again. The Shift key locks the aspect ratio of the image in place. Then I’’ll click on the image and drag it into position. To accept it I’’ll. Click the checkmark in the Options Bar And finally to zoom back in. I’’ll go back up to the View menu and I’ll once again, choose Fit on Screen, And now after replacing the contents, the new image in the smart object fits nicely in the frame. And there we have it That’’s how to edit a smart object and how to replace its contents in Photoshop. As always, I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you did, please consider liking it. Sharing it and subscribing to our channel. Visit our website Photoshop Essentialscom for more tutorials. Thanks for watching and I’’ll See you next time. I’m Steve Patterson from Photoshop Essentialscom.