Duplicating smart objects across documents

Hello, what I'm trying to do is keep smart objects linked when duplicating them over to a different document. The thing is, I don't have a problem with the links breaking when I duplicate them from one doc to another on my laptop (a PC) and my friend can also do it on his laptop (a mac). But on my work computer, when I try to duplicate a group with several smart objects inside it, the links break and I am no longer able to update the objects in the doc that I duplicated them into. Does that make sense?? I use Photoshop CC on both my work and home computer, and my friend used Photoshop cs4, but I'm thinking maybe my computer at home isn't the lastest update of CC.. my work computer is, and that is where I am having the issue of broken links. Could this just be a bug in the latest version? Any other thoughts on how I could fix this?
Thanks!

Could this just be a bug in the latest version?
Ah, how easily some people bandy about the word »bug« … but you simply may be right. (edited)
I can reproduce the issue on 14.2.1 – a group of instances of a Smart Object duplicated to a different file behaves as individual Smart Objects (and the file size seems to reflect that).
Maybe you can search
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/
for existing bug reports on this or, if none exist and someone else can confirm the issue, create one.

Similar Messages

Using Smart objects between documents

I know how to make smart objects within a single document, but Is it possible to use Smart objects between separate psd files?
I would like to create a master background file and have any changes made to this updated throughout all the other psd documents that contain this.
I cant find any info on this...Can it be done?
thanks
Jeff

No a smart object layer contains a copy of the original in the layer. If you then change the orignal the copy in the smart object layer is not updated and if you change the copy in the smart object layer the original is not changed. Smart Object are independant from the original. It is posible to have multipal smart object layers that contain the same smart object in a single document. You can change the single smart object from any of the layers that its in. You can also have independant smart object layers of the same image. That the difference between dupeing a smart object layer and using menu layers>smart objects>new smart object via copy.

Creating Independent Smart Objects in the Same Document???

I'm not even sure how to ask this question really, so here goes. I downloaded a .psd file that is a catalog mockup. The document contains a smart object that looks like a catalog lying on a table top and I want to take my catalog art and place it in this smart object so that it looks like I've taken a nice photograph of my design work. That is the easy part!
What I want to do now is duplicate that smart object, put it underneath the original so it is peeking out and tilt it a bit. Then I want to put the back side of the catalog art on it so that it now looks like I've got both the front and back showing. Only problem I keep running into is that now when I click on the 2nd, duplicated smart object and put the different art (back of catalog) on it, it updates the original, first smart object that I want to show the front of the catalog. Frustrating!!!!
Basically I want the two smart objects to not link and update each other when they are in the same document. Is this possible? I can't find anything online so far and am running out of time. I even tried calling Adobe and that WAS A MESS.
Thanks!

Yay! Ok, so I had tried that before and it didn't work, but this time I dissected the layers a bit more and saw that whoever created the .psd file I downloaded had put masks on the catalog images so that is why the bottom catalog smart object that I duplicated wouldn't show anything on it except for where the top one overlapped it. It was driving me nuts. I trashed the layer masks and it worked fine
Thanks!!

Smart Objects saving in Dumb Place?

Is there any way to tell Photoshop to save smart objects in the same directory as the parent file?
Is there any way to tell Photoshop to save smart objects as a .PSD rather than .PSB?

Yes, thank you Warunicorn.
The question is about smart objects created in a document. Similar to precomping a series of layers in After Effects, where you select some layers, merge them into one sequence and then double click that sequence to edit it directly.
If you follow this workflow in Photoshop, (select layers>convert to smart object) it creates a file that is hidden in the temp and saves it as a .psb. If I wanted to share this document with others, I'd probably want to save as>.psd to some relevant location. Doing this makes a copy which is not linked to the original document.
Maybe there is a better way to do this, but in my professional design setting, our team starts with a large artboard of images- we then puts these images into folders (layer folders), we apply adjustments, write notes and eventually turn several layers into neatly organized smart objects. The smart objects become their own documents for members of the team to work on, and the changes are thus propagated up the line to the original 'parent' artboard... As it stands now, I can either relink the smart objects to documents that have been saved to relevant locations/file types or replace them entirely with link/embed.
Why save these files to temp? Why not save them to the same directory as the parent as a .psd?

New Smart Object Via Copy

Hello Everyone.
I have a smart object, and, If I apply Control "J" Or Drag It to the New Layer Icon, It will Duplicate the Layer.
And If I Go to Layer-Smart Objects- New Object Via Copy, It dose the same thing.
What Is the Different between Control J, or Go to Layer- Smart Objects- New Smart Object Via Copy.
Thanks

You can have duplicated smart object layers that share a common embedded object and you can have duplicated smart object layers with independent embedded smart object. To get independent embedded object you need to use Layers>Smart Objects>New Smart Object via Copy. There are several way to create duplicate smart object layer with shared embedded object. Read Photoshop Help on smart Objects
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WS41A5B796-6846-4e95-8459-95243441E126.html

Duplicated document with the smart object which has a DNG file inside it

A TIFF file has a DNG file as a smart object inside it ...
If you duplicate this file, the smart object can not be opened any more.
Any idea?
Thanks ...

I've looked at it again for TIFF after reading your post ... it is working now

Documents with Smart Objects - Very slow to open and Save - CS6 Photoshop

When opening and saving documents with smart objects photoshop freezes the adobe PS loader (circle dots) is replaced and the system loader (multi colored wheel of death) spins for 30 seconds or more.
What I've tried so far based off looking at various posts.
Photoshop Preferenes
Save in Background off
Maximise PSD and PSB file compatability never
Cache Tile Size: 128k
Advanced Graphic Processor Settings: Basic & Normal
Layer Panel options: No Thumbnail
Observations and workthroughs to date
The file size and amount of smart objects effects the file expotentially i.e. The more smart objects you have the worse it gets
These files worked perfectly in PS CS5
It also happens on files natively created in PS CS6
The CPU is maxing out at 100% while PS loads
Closing or opening suitcase has no effect.
System:
iMac 27-inch, Mid 2011
Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1024 MB
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)
Suitcase 4
Anyone got any ideas? This is making me go nuts!

A solution!
It turns out the problem in my case was in fact Suitcase. Previously, I'd tried turning it off, but that didn't fix the problem, so this time, I uninstalled it completely and the problem disappeared. I then began re-adding it (installed 15.0.1, upgraded it, etc.) and the problem resurfaced with the addition of the Photoshop-specific plugin. Deleting that plugin solved the problem. So it seems that "disabling" Suitcase by stopping the TypeCore doesn't seem to actually disable all of the tentacles it sticks into your system.
You can find the plugin here: Applications / Adobe Photoshop CS6 / Plug-ins / Automate / ExtensisFontManagementPSCS6.plugin
(After a restart, I also had to delete the font cache, as described here http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-fonts-photoshop-cs5.html but your mileage may vary.)
Alternately, if you don't want to delete the plugin, disabling it from within Photoshop seems to work as well. To do that, go to File > Automate > Extensis, click Preferences..., then deselect Enable Suitcase Fusion 4 Auto-Activation.
Fortunately, the plugin doesn't seem necessary at all to use the the core functionality of Suitcase (enabling and disabling fonts) in Photoshop. I didn't even know what these app-specific plugins did until researching this problem, and I still don't quite understand the point of them. I guess they allow you to let the apps for which they're installed do a little bit more of their own management (enable a font via Suitcase that isn't enabled system-wide), but that seems like more control than I need--if I'm enabling a font, I want all my software to be able to use it.
Anyway, the problem seems to be completely solved on my system now, though I just did all this, so more testing over the next few days is required. I'll post here if any issues crop up. I'm interested in hearing if this solves it for anyone else as well.

Compile Photoshop documents as smart objects into a document

I have several Photoshop documents that I would like to complie into one Photoshop document as separate Smart Objects.
Can that be done in CC?
I used to use Russel Brown's Place-A-Matic Script, but that is not supported in CC.

It seems the version you download from the scripts page doesn't work in photoshop cc, but the Dr Browns Services 2.31 that you can install from the
Adobe Exchange Panel from within photoshop cc does, so you might try installing that version and see if it works.
(it seems to work okay in photoshop cc on windows 7)

Psd document size up down up down: does layer smart object raw nef remain unfazed?

If we have a document psd with a smart object layer, a camera raw item like .NEF full size,
and then we cut the document size by 50% for archiving space, I notice the camera raw
item keeps its original number of pixels. So now if I enlarge the document (X2) to return to
the original size, do i maintain the original image quality sharpness? Also, at the 1/2 size,
can we export the smart object .nef layer to a full size image?

good. So how do we know how tiny can we can down size for archiving?? The raw nef size ~34 MB? I suppose the non smart objects layers will degrade with resizing?

Using Smart Objects in large scale documents.

I'm creating a large scale banner (12' by 8') which includes a photographic background image with vector based logo elements and typography on top of it. I am creating the document in photoshop, and wanted to know if using Smart Objects is the best solution for placing the logo elements and typography, but I don't know how they will be affected when the image is scaled for printing.

In that case a Vector Smart Object (File > Place or pasting the Illustrator content) should work fairly well.
One thing to keep in mind is that in Illustrator Raster Effects (Drop Shadows, Filters, Color Meshes, …) have a resolution determined under Effect > Document Raster Effect Settings.
If that resolution is low upscaling on Photoshop may reveal noticeable pixels.

Photoshop document with smart objects changed when I apply color profile. Why?

I work in Photoshop with smart objects. When I apply color profile smart object are changed. For example change filter or change size. I dont now why?
See image

Yes, fortunately, I am a Windows user, but I don't want to start a religious war here And it is also possible to run multiple versions of Adobe products simultaneously under Windows - why shouldn't that be possible? Currently I have CS3 and CS4 and somtimes use CS3 when CS4 is just too buggy to get the job done. Before that I had CS and CS2 on the same machine.
But I wouldn't keep all versions back to PS 6.0 or CS, that would be a bit too chaotic and I'd had to spend days of installing if I get a new computer. I expect those programs to be a little bit backwards-compatible, so I don't have to use many different versions. And for Photoshop, this is mostly the case. It's just very tiny details like Smart Object resizing that seems to work differently.
Otherwise I'm really happy that in CS4 I can finally link Masks to smart objects and apply warp and perspective on them, that's a big plus!

Photoshop bug: Smart Objects overwriting other Smart Objects when edited and saved in Illustrator

Experiencing issues when working with a large number (over 200) vector smart objects brought into Photoshop CS4 from Illustrator.
Things seemed to be going along nicely; if I needed to edit a Smart Object, I could double-click it, it would open in Illustrator and then I could edit and save it. Return to Photoshop and the Smart Object is updated. Swell and dandy. The issue started happen when I hit a large quantity of either vector smart objects (remember, over 200) or the many layers and groups within Photoshop (must be over 500). When I would double-click, open, edit, and save the vector Smart Object, the Photoshop Smart Object I was working on would update AND another/several other Smart Objects would update as well. Which, of course, would ruin the artwork, as suddenly I was seeing several instances of the same object. If it hadn't have been for ForeverSave, I many not have recovered the work.
It's rather hard to isolate the issue to see what's causing the problem. Here are some of the possible causes:
Running Snow Leopard on Mac
Many, many Smart Objects in file, perhaps enough to ruin the naming convention and cause bugs when Photoshop referenced the temp file
Many, many Photoshop layers and groups
Illustrator vector files copy+pasted from several different files (affects the naming convention perhaps?)
Some groups/layers in Photoshop are duplicates
To help make it a little clearer, you should know:
Running the most updated software / OS (that is until CS5 comes out)
Smart Objects showed no error until I had actually opened, edited, and saved the referenced temp file (i.e. VectorSmartObject1.ai)
Files saved and worked on from Dropbox (network folder)
Not looking for much of an answer to this question; I just wanted to see if anyone else had come across this bug. Also, Adobe PLEASE look into this as you begin testing for the next update. I have the file(s) if you need to replicate the issue. My best guess is that the naming convention of Vector Smart Objects has an odd character limit so when Vector Smart Object 200.ai is saved, Vector Smart Object 2.ai gets overwritten.

Have you tested this with Photoshop CS5 and Illustrator CS5? (the current versions, that came out last month)
If you duplicated a smart object layer, both layers refer back to the same file content. So when you change the file, both layers would be updated. That is intentional and explained in your manual. If you didn't realize this, that could explain what you are seeing.
If you placed separate files, then they should not be updated at the same time, because they will refer to separate files.
Yes, Smart Objects only update when you save the file.
You would need over 4 billion smart objects in one document to get Photoshop confused about which one refers to which file. And since the layer limit is much less than 4 billion, I doubt that is the cause.
There is no naming convention involved. We don't limit the filenames (except to platform standards and to include a file type extension).

Open as "Smart Object" from ACR to PS questions.

I have 2 questions associated with opening from ACR as a Smart Object in Photoshop. I'm using CS4.
1. Is there a way to retrieve the original filename (complete with path) using a script or a setting somewhere to do this? I'm currently using Bridge Talk to ask Bridge what the active folder is then adding that to the document's .name property and taking off the " as Smart Object-1" part. Then I add a .psd extension to it and then I have to save it to retain that name unless there's an answer to #2 below.
2. Is there a way to change the Document's name as described above from "Filename as Smart Object-1" to "Filename.psd" without actually saving it?
It seems to me there would be a simple way that I might be overlooking here.
Thanks
Mike

Sorry, I guess I need to explain better.
I wrote a script to do this, but here is this portion of the workflow:
1. Open CR2 file in ACR and make adjustments.
2. Open as Smart Object in PS.
3. Script Events Manager activates this script on Document Open, checks to see if it was opened as a Smart Object. We'll assume it did.
4. The script asks me if I want to make another layer. I pick yes. The script copies the SO layer, sets an inverted mask, and opens to edit settings in ACR again.
5. I adjust the settings for that layer in ACR and click OK.
The script will keep looping between 4 and 5 as long as I pick YES.
This gives me more local control of areas. If I want to bring out eyes a bit, I can up contrast, saturation, sharpness, brightness, exposure, or whatever looks best for the eyes in ACR, then unmask the eyes as much as I want on that layer in Photoshop. There is more data to pull from in the RAW file vs trying to do the same thing within Photoshop.
Opening as a regular image file then converting to a SO doesn't give me the same control. I would have to reopen the file separately, make the adjustments in ACR, open to PS then copy that document and paste as a new layer in the original.
Duplicating the document might work also, but I can also just save as .psd at that point since I'd have to know the path name by then anyway. I'll give that a try, though, and see if it might work better. The only catch with the save part is it slows me down waiting for it to write the file and if I have 5+ SO layers, it takes awhile. Once I unmask where I want, I flatten to a rasterized layer and continue.
Thanks

Photoshop CS6: Pros and Cons of Using Smart Objects

I haven't had Photoshop CS6 for that long, and have only just got past feeling uncomfortable with using Curves, now I've learnt how to use them properly.
My concern is - I am currently learning about Smart Objects. The concept, at first, seemed like 'the best thing since sliced bread', being able to non-destructively use filters, Shadows/Highlights command, Unsharp Mask, endlessly scale using Free-Transform etc etc, without harming pixels at all.
However, the more articles I read about their use in Photoshop, the more I am afraid to start using them in my workflow.
I understand that when you convert to a Smart Object, this process is non-destructive, i.e. I can perform as many readjustments to a filter, for example, and Photoshop will always work from the embedded container file (which has had no filter adjustment made to it) to adjust the filter to your most recently adjusted settings. If you later decide you don't want to use a filter at all, and rasterize the Smart Object back into a regular layer again, is this process non-destructive as well?
Then there is this article, which I struggle to understand properly:
http://bjango.com/articles/smartobjects/
Please see the part 'Smart Objects Created in Photoshop'. It seems to say I can't scale with a Smart Object without causing interpolation and blurry edges. Please can somebody clarify what the writer of this article is trying to get across, because it is well documented that Smart Objects can be endlessly rescaled non-destructively.
Please understand I use Photoshop primarily for editing photographs.

There is much modern focus on "non-destructive" editing, but keep in mind if you don't overwrite or destroy the original file there is no destruction at the highest level. Put in layman's terms, you could always start over with the raw file.
That thought segways into my next one: Non-destructive editing makes sense if you need to use the same information for a variety of somewhat related purposes, or if the work product may need to change (e.g., to suit the whims of a fickle client).
But at another extreme, if you're editing for a particular purpose - say creating the best possible print from an exposure - sprinting right for the finish line by changing pixel values directly and being done with it can be an extremely effective approach. This requires that you get things right the first time, and that takes practice.
Some folks do their Photoshop work by building up layer after layer and using smart objects, smart filters, etc., and this can be effective but no computer has yet been built that can composite all that stuff in real time with a big image. So there IS a cost to doing it. What you might gain by being able to re-do things, you might not have needed to gain if your control responses were instantaneous and you could tweak the intermediate result at every step very easily. Note the number of posts about how slow Photoshop CS6 is/was at editing deep documents, some by people using 2012 computers.
As with most things, it's horses for courses. It's good that Photoshop gives us rich tools and choices for how to work.
Regarding your specific question, bear in mind that what's communicated to the parent document from each of its embedded Smart Objects is a flat, rasterized image. Think of the embedded smart object kind of like going off and opening another document, making the changes you want, saving the document, then flattening it and pasting the pixels into your parent document.
In the very first example in the linked article, they show how the smart-object-rasterized image of a vector circle, subsequently scaled by resampling the parent document in which the Smart Object is used, becomes fuzzy as it is scaled up. Once you understand this you realize that of course you could scale up the smart object itself, e.g., to a size equal to or larger than what's ultimately needed by the parent document, and then it could be crisp in the parent document where it's used.
Of course, having all your smart objects at a size larger than you need takes up even more resources.
-Noel

How can I duplicate a smart object and then edit it, without affecting the original?

I have a vector element from illustrator that I am placing in a tshirt mockup in photoshop. I have the layout essentially how I would like, but I am trying different color variations. I would think to just duplicate the first placement and then edit the color of the resulting copy, but this affects both the copy and the original. I looked into it a bit further, and found that I should try the "replace contents" option under smart objects, and that this would change the copy. So I go back to illustrator, made a copy of the original vector, and then made the color change I had in mind, and then saved it as a separate document that I could then use in replacing the contents of the copied. This however, is still affecting both smart objects!
I have tried this as both linked smart objects and embedded smart objects without success.
Ultimately, I simply want to maintain the position of the original layer with the duplicated and edited layers. If you know of a better way, please share!

I'm on CC on a Mac.
What 21 is talking about is making some sense.
I am able to create new smart object via copy, then create a variation on the original file linked in the parent smart object. Then I save that from illustrator with a different file name. Then I go back to photoshop and replace contents of the new smart object, linking it to the newer illustrator file.
This gets around the problem, but it takes a few more steps than the same thing did it in earlier versions of photoshop.

Duplicating smart objects across documents

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