Do you use Photoshop/Lightroom Smart Objects?

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bakubo
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Do you use Photoshop/Lightroom Smart Objects?

Unread post by bakubo »

Smart Objects in Photoshop and Lightroom are a dream feature. If you don't know what they are then I suggest you do as I did and spend 3-5 minutes reading about them. For a long time I had heard the name, but didn't know what they were and never bothered to check.

In Lightroom you can send a photo to Photoshop (many people know how to do this) or you can select the option to send it to Photoshop as a Smart Object. Within Photoshop you can do stuff as usual and even send the photo to a plug-in such as Denoise AI, Sharpen AI, etc. And all the time the non-destructive editing ability is maintained both in Photoshop and in Lightroom after you return. Even the plug-in stuff is basically non-destructive and you can go back and make adjustments again. Very cool! Currently if you make local adjustments in Photoshop then the Smart Object will get demoted to a normal baked-in file though. Local adjustments in Lightroom, of course, are still non-destructive.

I have played with Smart Objects with Lightroom/Photoshop/Denoise AI/Sharpen AI and it is very impressive. For my own case though I reluctantly don't use them because for me there is a tremendous downside. I know from reading this forum though that for many people that is not a downside for them. So, are people making use of this fantastic feature?
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dewarp
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Re: Do you use Photoshop/Lightroom Smart Objects?

Unread post by dewarp »

I use CS6. A lot!. I rarely use smart objects because of the limitations. These days I retain most layers from start to finish of editing. (This usually means saving as a psb file because of the size.) If I need to change something that I did early on (happens often) I go back and redo the layers again. Finally I export a flat tiff file back into LR. After I am pretty sure that I will not need to psb file anymore, I trash it.

regards - Peter
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bakubo
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Re: Do you use Photoshop/Lightroom Smart Objects?

Unread post by bakubo »

Using smart object going from Lightroom to Photoshop to a plug-in and then back to Lightroom and maintaining the non-destructive editing ability all the way is really cool, but the price you have to pay for that is too high for me.
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bakubo
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Re: Do you use Photoshop/Lightroom Smart Objects?

Unread post by bakubo »

Photoshop CS6 is rather ancient. It came out in May 2012. I am using the current versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. It is possible, even very likely, that smart objects have been improved in the last 9+ years. Particularly the integration between Lightroom and Photoshop.
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dewarp
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Re: Do you use Photoshop/Lightroom Smart Objects?

Unread post by dewarp »

I'm pretty sure that smart objects improved in later versions of PS/LR. However, I do not know much about Adobe products since they stopped selling perpetual licenses.

regards - Peter
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dewarp
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Re: Do you use Photoshop/Lightroom Smart Objects?

Unread post by dewarp »

This just arrived in my in-tray. I haven't actually looked at it yet, but it may be of interest to you.

https://f64academy.com/smart-objects-do ... 9062d40ab8

regards - Peter
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