Archives for 2017

I’ve written quite a few posts that talk about selecting areas or parts of an image. There’s certainly no shortage of methods to take advantage of when it comes to something like this. And really, Photoshop has come a very long way with making life easier for editors like you and me. Selecting can be done very quickly today, which is a stark contrast with some of the darker times of the past.

In today’s post, I’d like to cover one more option for making a selection in Adobe Photoshop. In the past, I relied on using one of the many selection tools, such as the Quick Selection Tool, Magic Wand Tool, one of the Lasso Tools or one of the Marquee Tools. Whatever the case was, I made the selection outside of the Select & Mask area. Below, I’d like to discuss how you can go about making your selection inside the Select & Mask area. It’s quite simple and it’s oftentimes more efficient making selections this way, rather than one of the others, because all of the refinement options are right there at your fingertips.

Demo Photo

Again, I hunted for a photo that would have something very clear and simple to select. Since I’m not writing about tips and tricks for making accurate selections in and of themselves, I thought I’d save a little time by focusing on the item and selection options alone. With this in mind, I chose this photo. Down below, I’ll be attempting to select the coffee cup saucer, which shouldn’t be too difficult.

Accessing the Select & Mask Workspace

There are three very simple methods for accessing the Select & Mask workspace. First, you can use the keyboard shortcut of Alt+Ctrl+R. That will immediately put you where you need to be. Conversely, you can head up to the top Select > Select and Mask menu item and click. Doing this would have the identical effect as the first method.

As a reminder of that shortcut, it’s listed right there in the menu itself.

Finally, to access this workspace, you can click on any selection tool over in the vertical left toolbar and then click on the Select and Mask button up in the options menu.

Once this is done, you’ll be sitting pretty in the Select & Mask workspace. You’ll know you’re there because the left vertical toolbar will change. The right column will change as well.

Choosing Your View Mode

If you look over to the right, towards the top of the Properties column, you’ll see a small drop-down box that offers a variety of view modes for the image in the workspace. I’ve found that my favorite to start off with is the Onion Skin option. Let me show you a screenshot of some of the choices.

Basically, each of these options offers a distinct view of the image your selecting from. As you can see, the Onion Skin fades the image and shows clearly any areas that have been selected. I can also control how much the image is faded out by pushing the Transparency slider to the left or to the right.

The full list of options at this moment in time are Onion Skin, Marching Ants, Overlay, On Black, On White, Black & White and On Layers. As I said, I prefer the Onion Skin over the other options, but I also find myself taking advantage of the Marching Ants and On Black options from time to time. For this demonstration, I’ll stick with Onion Skin. I’ll also set the Transparency to 20% so there’s a fair amount of difference between the selected area and the non-selected area.

Making the Selection

At the time of this writing, there are a few different tool options for making a selection in this workspace. These really are the good ones, so we’re lucky to have them here. From the top to bottom in the left vertical toolbar, these options are the Quick Selection Tool, Brush Tool, Lasso Tool and Polygonal Lasso Tool. There’s also a Refine Edge Brush Tool in there, but that can’t be used unless a selection has previously been made by one of the others.

And just to be complete, we have the Hand Tool and the Zoom Tool, but those aren’t used to select.

Really, all I want to do in this post is show you that you can make a selection right in this workspace. In later posts, I’ll be discussing how you can refine those selections and make them the best that they can be. So, to make the selection, I’ll click on the Quick Selection Tool and resize the brush by using the [ and ] keys on my keyboard.

Then, I’ll begin clicking and tracing around the edge of the saucer. I made the brush about eighth the size of the saucer itself. I found that size worked the best. Here’s an Onion Skin example.

And here’s one I did using the Marching Ants option.

Now, as I was making these selections, I managed to make my way outside the lines at times. To correct these errant selections, I held down the Alt key to unselect. When I did this, the small + sign at the center of my brush changed to a – sign, indicating a removal of a selected area. Also, it’s sometimes helpful to enlarge an area while selecting. To enlarge and shrink the image, you can use the Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- keyboard shortcuts on the fly. If you look up in the options bar while using one of these tools in this workspace, you’ll see that there are options for adding to or removing from a selection as well as a resizing option. While I prefer the keyboard shortcuts, you might appreciate the more clearly visible route.

Inverting & Clearing the Selection

I thought I’d throw this in here too. While I was making these selections, I had to clear things out every once in a while so I could create the screenshots for this post. To clear a selection in this workspace, you can simply click the Clear Selection button in the Properties panel. Also, to invert a selection, meaning reverse what’s selected, you can click the Invert button right next to the clear one.

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I hope I clearly explained how to access the Select & Mask workspace in Adobe Photoshop as well as how to make a simple selection inside of this area. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading!

Creating selections and masks is tough enough to do once. If there were a way to recycle them, things in my world would be almost perfect. Luckily, in Adobe Photoshop, there is a method for reusing selections and masks and in today’s post, that’s exactly what I’ll talk about.

I’ve written about this topic a few times previously. The thing is, in those posts, I completed many of my tasks using keyboard shortcuts. That’s fine, but in an attempt to demystify some of the options up there in the numerous menus this application has to offer, I thought I’d write about things again, but this time, while using some of those items. I know that I’ve personally been intimidated by the seemingly countless menu items in graphics programs such as this, so a bit of light being shed on this topic isn’t necessarily a negative.

In today’s post, I’m going to select a giraffe’s head using the Quick Selection Tool in Photoshop. Once it’s selected, I’ll do some edge refining and then I’ll turn the selection into a mask. After that, I’ll demonstrate how to go about turning masks into selections and how to duplicate masks in general. I’ll apply various adjustments to alter the look of the image. You will see this entire project from start to finish.

Demo Photo of Giraffe

If you feel like you’ve seen this image before on this website, your intuition is spot on. I did use it. I used it in a post that talked about different types of transformations in Photoshop. The reason I chose to work with it again today is because the head is so distinct from the background. Since this isn’t a post in which I intend to discuss the intricacies of making great selections, I’d prefer to use an image that offers an easy version of that process. See what I’m talking about? Selecting this head shouldn’t pose too many issues.

Making the Selection

My primary goal for this project is to separate the giraffe’s head from the background. Once I do that, I’d like to experiment with changing the brightness, contrast and tone of each, in an effort to see what looks best. To start off though, I need to make a selection.

To do this, I’ll head over to the left vertical menu and click the Quick Selection Tool.

From here, I’ll click on the Brush Options drop-down in the options bar for this tool. I’ll adjust the brush size, hardness and spacing. I’ll likely have to alter the brush size as I’m working, so to do that on the fly, I’ll use the [ and ] keyboard shortcuts to shrink and enlarge the tool coverage area.

Also, since this is a relatively defined edge, I’ll go with 100% hardness.

Next, I’ll click and drag the brush around the edge of the giraffe’s head to make the selection. If I go outside the lines, I’ll simply hold down the Alt (Option on Mac) key on my keyboard to delete part of the selection. Let’s see what I come up with.

If you look closely, you can see the marching ants. I’d say this is a very good selection effort.

Select & Mask

Since this is a fairly delicate selection, the next reasonable step is to take a closer look at the selection I’ve already created. To do this, I’ll click the Select & Mask button up in the options bar. This will open a new window with a whole bunch of refinement tools.

In this new window, there are generally a few areas I head to first. They are the Radius slider, under the Edge Detection heading, which I push to the right. I also check the Smart Radius box.

And after that, I’ll use the Refine Edge tool to clean up the edges even more. This is another brush and all it requires is to be dragged along the edges of the initial selection. It’s sort of like a magnifying glass with its analysis. It’ll take the original selection edge and apply a new edge in a much more granular fashion. This tool is perfect for what I’m doing here with this giraffe. There is hair that hasn’t been properly selected as well as a few eyelashes that have been skipped altogether.

I’ll brush the edges and fix all this now.

Finally, after I have things looking the way I want them, I’ll output the result. I’ll head down to the lower right portion of the window and click on the Output To drop-down box and from there, I’ll click on Selection. Doing this will keep the selection active with those marching ants moving.

Then, I’ll click the OK button and I’ll end up back in the regular workspace with a cleaner selection edge. That’s it for making the selection.

Adding Contrast

Remember, any adjustment I make now will occur within the confines of the selection (the head). So, I’ll go ahead and click the Brightness/Contrast icon in the Adjustments panel, which will give me a new layer as well as pop open the Properties panel for this particular adjustment.

I’ll push the Contrast slider to the right until I reach a value of 60. All this does is add some refinement to the shade differentiation of the giraffe.

Reselecting & Inverting a Selection

Next up, I’d like to work on the background of the image. In order to do this, I’ll need to reselect the original selection. I’ll make sure the adjustment layer mask is selected and then I’ll head up to the Select > Reselect menu item and click.

This will use the mask in the Layers panel as a template for the new selection. This is an incredible tip, so be sure to write it down somewhere.

Once the selection has been made, I can invert it by going back to the Select menu and clicking on Inverse.

Doing this will select everything that’s currently not selected as opposed to everything that is selected.

Darkening the Background

To darken the background of this image, I’ll once again click on the Brightness/Contrast icon in the Adjustments panel. This will create a new adjustment layer as well as pop open the Properties panel again. From there, I’ll push the Brightness slider all the way to the left, so the background is as dark as it will go with this tool.

Let’s take a look at the final image.

I wouldn’t say it looks any better or worse than the original image, but it sure did work well for this demonstration. If you want to see what’s going on in the Layers panel, please take a look at the next screenshot.

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I hope I clearly explained how to make a selection in Adobe Photoshop using the Quick Selection Tool, as well as how to refine a selection edge. I also covered how to reselect a selection by using a layer mask as well as how to invert a selection that’s already been made. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

In the past, I have expounded the benefits of working with Smart Objects on a number of occasions. I explained, sometimes in great detail, how valuable these things are when it comes to working in a non-destructive manner. I’ve even given a number of examples to back up my claims. What I haven’t done though is talk about any of their pitfalls. There’s a big one out there and it can really put a damper on your workflow if you don’t know how to work around it.

In today’s post, I’d like to describe the pitfall I just referred to and explain what you can do to continue on working as if it didn’t even exist. Then, I’ll throw in a tip that can assist with your decision making when it comes to your editing. Of course, I’ve already explained much of what I’m about to write before, but never quite in this order. So, read on to see what happens next.

Demo Photo

For this post, I needed to find a photo that included artifacts that were easily removed with a tool such as the Spot Healing Brush Tool. While what I’ll discuss below doesn’t only apply to this tool, this is a really good one to use because of its popularity. Anyway, I think the photo I chose is a good one. It’s got tons of bits of light that I can clearly and accurately remove with this brush. Take a look.

It actually doesn’t matter what photo I use because the concept is consistent across all types.

What’s the Problem?

I already have the photo opened up in Photoshop. Because of this, there is one background layer in the Layers panel.

Right now, the image looks like it’s sort of grainy. To deal with this, I’d like to add a very small amount of blur to it, just to compensate for the grain. Since I know that I don’t want to apply any of the blur permanently because I might change my mind later, I’ll convert the layer to a Smart Object. Doing this will allow me to turn the blur on and off at my will.

To convert this layer to a Smart Object, I’ll right click on the layer thumbnail and select the Convert to Smart Object option.

Once I do this, the layer will cease being a locked background layer and will become the Smart Object I want it to be. I’ll know when this happens by the appearance of a small icon located in the lower right corner of the layer thumbnail.

Now, I can head up to the Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur menu item and click.

I’ll add a slight blur to the image so it’s not as grainy. If you would like to learn more about the Blur filters in Adobe Photoshop, please read through the post below.

Using Blur Gallery for Creative Blurring Effects in Adobe Photoshop

Now that the filter has been applied, let’s take another look at the Layers panel.

Okay, that’s looking great. I have the Smart Object layer with a Smart Filters layer right beneath it. Applied to that is the Gaussian Blur. If I wanted to keep adding filters to this layer, I could do so and they would fall in line under the blur.

So, what’s the problem? Well, let’s see. I can still see those little artifacts in the photo that I wanted to remove earlier. I’ll go ahead and activate the Spot Healing Brush Tool, size the brush and begin clicking around to get rid of them.

Now is the time to get rid of the artifacts. But wait. It’s not working. I don’t see my tool brush, but instead, I see a small circle with a line drawn through it. Uh oh. I guess this type of tool doesn’t work with Smart Objects. Yup, that’s the problem.

Sample All Layers

Since many brush tools don’t work with Smart Objects, it’s important to find a workaround. Luckily, I have one for you and really, this workaround is going to help you out more with it than without it.

To fix the problem, I’ll create a new layer above the Smart Object layer by clicking the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will give me a new empty layer.

Now, if I activate the Spot Healing Brush Tool again while the new layer is selected, I’ll see that this tool works. The only thing I need to be sure of before I begin clicking is that the Sample All Layers box is checked up in the options bar.

To read more about this trick, please click below.

Clearing Skin with the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop

I’ll go ahead and start clicking. I’ll remove some of the artifacts and spots I don’t want to see anymore. Okay, that’s done.

Now, if I hide the image layer so only the new top layer shows, I’ll see all the spots I just removed. Check this out.

There we have it. Problem solved! I’m able to use the Spot Healing Brush Tool when a layer is a Smart Object.

Erasing & Masking

Let’s say that I changed my mind with a few of these areas I just removed with the Spot Healing Brush Tool. After all, I was just flying around fairly quickly for a demonstration. I wasn’t sure what I was doing.

In a previous post, I wrote that I could use the Eraser Tool to remove some of the dots I just displayed above. Basically, I would just need to activate the tool, resize it and then remove what I wanted to see in the original photo again. That’s pretty easy.

The thing is, there’s an even better way. It’s sort of a non-destructive method on top of a non-destructive method. Since I took all the time to locate and brush over the spots I wanted to remove, wouldn’t it make sense to mask any area out that I wanted to see again as opposed to completely erasing it with the Eraser Tool? I’d say so. All I would need to do is add a mask to the very top layer and then paint any area I wanted to see in the original photo again, black. Remember, I’ll hide the dots by painting their mask black, which will reveal them again in the photo.

To create a layer mask, I’ll make sure the top layer with the dots on it is selected in the Layers panel. Then, I’ll click the Add Layer Mask icon that’s located at the bottom of the same panel. This will add a layer mask to the new layer.

Now, while the new layer mask is selected, I can use the Brush Tool and the color black to paint over any dot that’s covering any original area I removed. Take a look at the layer mask thumbnail in this next screenshot.

Those black areas in the layer mask are covering up the dots I created when I used the Spot Healing Brush Tool. The corrections are now hidden. To reveal them again, all I need to do is paint over the black with white. That will reveal them.

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I know all this non-destructive stuff can be confusing at times, but trust me when I say that it’s worth getting used to. There’s nothing worse than having to change a permanent edit. Anyway, I hope I clearly explained how to use the Spot Healing Brush Tool (among others) with a Smart Object in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

This is one of those posts that’s going to be super helpful to a ton of people. I’ve seen a lot of video in my day and some of the coolest effects are derived from how the speed of the video is portrayed to the viewer. While normal speed is obviously the most common, faster or slower speeds certainly help when it comes to special effects and emphasizing a particular scene or event. Luckily, it’s really easy to alter the rate of movement when it comes to any type of video in Adobe Photoshop.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you the fastest and easiest method for adjusting video speed in Photoshop. You’ll love it. I’ll also explain how rate affects duration and vice-versa. It takes a second to understand, but once you do, you’ll be using this feature all the time. I guarantee it.

Demo Videos

Since Christmas is in the air, I thought I’d use a Christmas related video. Basically, the video pans from the right to the left, across the front door of a house, into a living room. It ends with some random holiday lights. It’s actually a really nice video. Check out a screenshot.

Taking Note of the Current Scene

When learning about the speed and duration topic, it’s important to note what’s going on in the original scene. Basically, we can assume that any raw video clip we open in Adobe Photoshop will be operating at a normal rate of 100%. By the way, that’s how speeds are measured, by percentage. 100% is considered real time. Also, since knowing the duration of the clip is critical to producing a quality movie, it’s helpful to take note of the clip’s duration. In my case, the duration is 25.52 seconds. So, I have a 25.52 second video clip running at 100% speed. That’s fine.

How did I find this information? Well, that’s easy. All I did was click the small triangle that sits at the end of the clip in the Timeline panel. Both values can be seen clearly in the pop-up that results.

In this pop-up, there are two values in the video panel (the Video panel is indicated by the small film icon being darker than the music note one). They are Duration and Speed. Both have adjustable sliders attached to them.

How to Adjust the Rate of Speed in a Video Clip

I’m going to begin this section by condensing the size of the video clip on the timeline. It’s important that we are able to see the entire thing. Here it is.

Notice how the duration of the clip is still approximately 25 seconds. That hasn’t changed at all.

Now, here’s how this whole thing works. If you want to slow a clip down, you have to lower the percentage value. To do this, I’ll click the triangle at the end of the clip in the Timeline panel again and set the speed to, say, 50%.

After setting the speed to half, I can see that nothing on the timeline changed very much. From here, if I were to press the Play button, I’d see the video play, but at half speed, which is what I wanted. The issue with this is that since the duration of the clip didn’t change and the clip is now playing at half speed, half of the movie will not show (the last half). It’ll effectively be gone.

To correct this issue, it’s important for me to get my calculator out and multiply the Duration value by 2. If I half the speed, I need to double the duration. Since the speed is going so slow, I’ll need more room at the end of the clip to account for that. So, in this case, I’ll set the duration to 51.04.

What’s helpful in Photoshop is that if I would like to increase the speed, I don’t need to do any math in regards to the duration of the clip. Photoshop does that for me. In this next screenshot, I typed a value of 200% into the Speed box and the moment I did that, the duration of the clip automatically reduced itself to 12.76 seconds. Also, please be aware that I could have moved the value sliders for these two settings and they would have given me the same results. The only reason I choose to type the values in is because I can be more accurate, much faster.

Also, note that I only have one clip opened in Photoshop right now. If I had many, I could adjust the speed and duration of each one individually. This is what most editors do, since they are usually working on multiple clips simultaneously.

The Relationship Between Speed & Duration

If you’re wondering about the relationship between these two settings, think about this: If you’d like to increase the speed of a clip, increase the speed percentage value. Photoshop will set the duration value for you. If you’d like to reduce the speed of a clip, reduce the speed percentage value and then you’ll need to do the math yourself and type in the duration value. If you’d like to increase the duration of a clip and still play the entire clip, albeit more slowly, you’ll need to first set the speed so it matches the proposed duration and then set the duration value. That’s the only way you can get this done. If you’d like to decrease the duration of a clip, you can do that at any time. Simply type in a smaller duration value. Understand though that you’ll be cutting off some of the movie, unless you increase the speed to match. If you do that, then the entire clip will play at the speed you set.

I know this is sort of confusing, but the more you experiment with these features, the easier it will become. It’s actually very intuitive. If you read through what I shared in this post a few times, you’ll understand what I’m saying and will be able to put it into practice.

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I hope I clearly explained how to adjust the speed and duration of a video clip in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Today, I feel like doing a bit of video editing. I’m going to use my previous post, where I discussed using text as a layer mask and apply the same concepts to using vector shapes as layer masks in this one. Nothing in this post will be new, but it sure will be fun. And I’ll be putting together a few different ideas below that have yet to be combined. The result will be a modern looking video that’s both attractive and informative.

In today’s post, I’ll be using a still image as a background in Adobe Photoshop. I’ll then be adding a vector shape as a layer in the project and then a video clip on top of that. I’ll use the vector shape as a clipping mask with the video, which will reveal only a portion of the video itself. I’d like to do this for effect as well as to show the gist of the video. I’ll work through all the necessary steps below.

The Background Photo

For this post, I’ll be using a background photo, as I mentioned above. The image is of the interior of a Mercedes-Benz. I chose this particular photo because it’s got the steering wheel on one side and the other side is relatively empty. It’s in this empty side that I’ll be placing the video.

Placing a Video Clip into Photoshop

I wrote an earlier post where I discussed a few different methods for opening video files into Adobe Photoshop.

5 Ways to Open Video Files into Adobe Photoshop

In this post, I described one of the simplest methods for getting a video clip into an existing tab in Photoshop is to click and drag it in from Adobe Bridge. While that’s fine, I think I’ll place the video clip into the file today. It’s almost just as fast and it uses a menu action, which is easier to explain in posts such as the one I’m writing.

To place a video file into an existing tab in Photoshop, I’ll first locate the file in Bridge. Then, I’ll right-click on the thumbnail, roll over the Place menu option and click on In Photoshop.

Doing this will place the clip inside of the active tab as a new layer. It’ll also be in transform mode, so it’s easy to adjust the size of the video before pressing Enter to accept it. In the screenshot below, you can see the transformation bounding box.

Since I would like to keep this video fairly large, I’ll simply press Enter on my keyboard to accept the placement and to remove the transform bounding box.

Adding a Vector Shape

In Photoshop, we have the ability to create vector shapes. I’ll be covering these type of shapes ad nauseam in later posts, but for now, just know that I’ll be drawing a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool over in the left vertical toolbar.

I’ll draw the rectangle over the right side of the image so the video can eventually be seen playing inside of the rectangle. Even though I can transform things later on, I’d like to get draw the rectangle as close to the shape as I can now.

Here’s what things like like as they stand. I hid the video layer because I want you to see what the shape looks like in the passenger side of the car.

Creating a Clipping Mask for the Video

Okay, I now have all three pieces of this file in place. I have the layers ordered so the video is on top, the shape is in the middle and the background image is at the bottom in the Layers panel. Take a look.

I also resized the shape so it’s no larger than the video on any side.

To create a clipping mask, meaning the mask I create will only connect two specific layers, I’ll hover my mouse pointer in between the video layer and the shape layer in the Layers panel. Then, I’ll press the Alt (Option on Mac) key on my keyboard. When the mouse pointer turns into a small black arrow and a square, I’ll click my mouse button. That’s all there is to it. The clipping mask will be created.

The result of this mask is that the majority of the video will disappear. Video will only show in the area of the rectangle. Because of this, I’ll need to move the video around somewhat, so the good part appears through this small window.

Repositioning the Video

Remember, I can move both the shape layer and the video layer anywhere I’d like. All I need to do is to click on the layer in the Layers panel and then use the Move Tool to click and drag. In this case, I’d like the centers of the video layer and the shape layer to be aligned. Since I’m already happy with the position of the rectangle, I’ll click and drag the video to the right.

Actually, to be as precise as possible, I’ll go ahead and select the video layer in the Layers panel by clicking on it. Then, I’ll use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to outline the rectangle with a selection.

Then, I’ll activate the Move Tool in the left vertical toolbar and finally, I’ll head up to the options bar and click on the Align Horizontal Centers button.

Basically, doing this centers the selected layer inside of the selection. I use this method of alignment all the time.

Adjusting the Timelines

Since each layer’s duration is different down in the Timeline panel, I’ll need to adjust each one of them so they equal the duration of the video. This is easy enough. I’ll simply click and drag the end points of the shape layer and the background layer so they’re lined up with the end of the video layer.

And really, that’s it. If I play the video via the Play button in the Timeline panel, I’ll see the results of my effort. I can export the final project for an MP4 file.

How to Export Video From Adobe Photoshop

And here is the final video after I uploaded it to my Youtube channel.

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I hope I clearly explained how to use vector shapes as clipping masks for video in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section down below. Thanks for reading!

In a previous post, I described how easy it is to launch an image from Adobe Camera Raw into Adobe Photoshop as a Smart Object. to make a long story short, all you need to do is to press and hold down the Shift key while in Camera Raw and then click on the Open Object button down at the bottom right. After that’s done, the image will jump over into Photoshop and a smart object will be born. To catch up with what I’m referring to, please review the post below.

Creative Workflows Between Camera Raw & Adobe Photoshop

I know I don’t need to praise smart objects any more than I already have on this site. They’re awesome and you should use them any chance you get. They can be real lifesavers. They can, at times, be confusing though and I wanted to use today’s post to clarify one aspect of smart objects that can be a source of great frustration. To explain things, I’ll walk through a short project. After I’m done, the issue won’t be confusing in the least and you’ll have a bit of knowledge to hold in your back pocket and to show off to friends with.

Demo Photo

For this post, I could have used any photo under the sun. The only qualification I needed was to have it open from Camera Raw into Photoshop as a smart object. Because this was the case, I chose a picture of some antique pharmacy drawers.

The Beginning of the Problem

Please allow me to run through a quick scenario for you. Let’s say you’re in Camera Raw and you decide that you would like to have the most flexible Photoshop/Camera Raw editing capabilities available. Because you would like this flexibility, you decide to open the photo you’re working on in Photoshop as a smart object. You press and hold the Shift key in Camera Raw, the Open Image button turns into the Open Object button down in the lower right corner and you press that button. The image transfers to Photoshop as the smart object and you’re all set. Here’s what things would look like.

As you can see from the above screenshot, there is a smart object layer in the Layers panel. It’s got the small object icon in the lower right corner of the layer thumbnail. The layer is also unlocked. So far, there’s no problem.

Duplicating the Layer

Next, let’s say you would like to start messing around with the image. Because you don’t want to alter the original smart object layer, you decide to duplicate it so you have some wiggle room to make some wild changes and some mistakes. If things get bad enough, you can always delete the layer and still have the original. To duplicate the layer, you click and drag the smart object layer down to the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel in Photoshop. When you get there, you let go, which results in two smart object layers now in the Layers panel. One is the original and one is the duplicate.

Still No Problem, So You Think

The time has come for you to make some changes to this duplicate layer in Camera Raw. As I described in my previous post, accomplishing this is as easy as double clicking on the smart object layer in Photoshop. You do this, Camera Raw opens up and you make some nutty change. To keep things easy to see, the duplicate will be changed to grayscale in Camera Raw.

Once you’re done with that, you click on the OK button which brings you back to Photoshop. I went over all this in my previous post.

What you should see is the duplicate layer in grayscale. Let’s check out the scene to get a glimpse of what really happened.

Well, this is unexpected. Both of the smart objects are grayscale. What’s going on? You didn’t want this at all. You wanted just the duplicate object to turn grayscale while keeping the original the way it was.

How To Duplicate Smart Objects Correctly

The reason we received this unexpected result is because when smart objects are duplicated in this fashion, they become linked to one another. When a change is made to one, it’s also made to the other. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if that’s what’s needed, but when things are meant to stay separate, this type of result isn’t good at all. To start over, I’ll delete the duplicate smart object and I’ll also get rid of the grayscale. I’ll start over with the original color version of this image.

Okay, I’m going to make a copy of this smart object using a method that won’t link the duplicate to it. To do this, I’ll select the original smart object in the Layers panel by clicking on it once. Then, I’ll head up to the Layer > Smart Objects > New Smart Object via Copy menu item and click.

After that, when I look down at the Layers panel, I’ll see two smart objects that look identical to what I had before.

Now, if I double-click on the duplicate to make it grayscale in Camera Raw, just that one layer will turn grayscale while the original stays the way it was. Nice!

If you look at the layers in the above screenshot, you’ll see that one is grayscale while the other is color. That’s exactly the way things are supposed to be. Now, the duplicate can be edited all day long and you don’t have to concern yourself with affecting the original.

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I hope I clearly explained how to go about creating duplicate smart objects in Adobe Photoshop while keeping them unlinked from one another. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!