Jacquelin Vanderwood

November 2005

I'm starting out with a photo I've manipulated and also a graphic I created in Photoshop. So as you should know if you've been working in Photoshop for awhile, is that when you increase the size of anything in Photoshop, you decrease the quality. In this lesson I'd like to show you how to go around that in Photoshop CS2.

So let's begin by dragging and dropping the graphic onto the photo.

Let's decrease the size by pressing Control+T and then reducing the size, then do the same and increase the size back to it's original size. Look how the quality has degenerated.

With the graphic layer selected, choose Layer>Smart Objects>Group into New Smart Object.

Notice that the layer has changed. It is now signified as a Smart Object layer.

As a Smart Object, let's go ahead and reduce the size again. Remember to press Enter.

Now increase the size again to the size it was approximately. Notice how the piece has not degenerated in any way.

You can then duplicate and change the sizes of the graphics. The Smart Object feature will stay attached as shown in the layers.

If you want to change something about the object, double-click the layer to open the original. Make the changes. Save. Click on the photo to see the changes made.

To make individual adjustments, you can apply New Adjustment Layers.

You can even apply other changes to the original graphic, save and the changes will occur in the photo as shown below or whatever type of project you are working on.

 Copyright (c) 2005, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved