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Lesson Info

How to Create Smart Filters

So this is just a regular photograph open. So it comes in is just a regular background layer. Nothing unusual about it in the I liked one of my colleagues has this expression where he talks about a few years ago in foolish offices in the olden days, meaning like photo shop CS four. Not that long ago, but he says it like the days of your, um if people want to apply a filter. Before there was thing called smart filters, a very common approach was to do this, duplicate the background layer, then apply whatever filter you wanted before clicking. OK, stare at it for several minutes to make sure those were the settings you wanted because you knew as soon as you clicked, okay, unless you press undo right away. It was too late, so people would go like this and I say, Yes, I'm gonna go with that. So now the only good thing about that technique is if I delete the top layer, I have the UNB, Lord one. But I don't know how much I blurred. I can't edit the blur. Really. The only option is well, at l...

east I can not have to start all over again. So that was just the way from a protection standpoint that we would often work with filters. If you wanted to apply a filter toe, only one part of an image. You would make a selection first of something and then apply a filter there. But then, if you want to edit, how much of that you couldn't because once it was so, there were filters. Now, thinking about in retrospect were really quite restrictive. But we kind of worked around because that's just the way they worked. There was any other option. So now, instead, I do the same thing that before convert to smart object. And I should mention, by the way, that if you Onley use smart objects for its ability to smart filters, that's still a really good thing. So if all the other conversation of multiple layers of stuff that you're like, yeah, I don't know if I do that if nothing else, I implore you to use smart filters because they will change your life so much easier. So, with that in mind, many people discover it because ago Oh, what's this convert for smart filters? That's just another way of saying, convert to a smart object. They just did it that way because they felt some people might discover it here. But when I click on that, it still makes it a smart object. There's no difference, just a different way to do it. Just like you go into the layer menu. And there's a command called Convert to Smart off. They'll get to the same end result. But the difference is now when I go to my blur amount, I don't have to be quite so worried about Did I get it exactly right the first time so I could blur it and click OK and then instantly in my layers panel. Now it tells me this layer has a filter on it. It's called Gaussian Blur. So now, just like we can with layers, I could hide it and show it, so it gives you the option of seeing before and after. If I look at it and say not sure I like that amount of blur, you double click on the name of it. It takes you right back to the filter that in itself is a game changer, because before you couldn't do that, you had to be pretty darn sure those were the settings you wanted, because once you moved on, its refuted to other steps. Now you're really stuck because you can't go back like three steps ago when changed the filter so I can look at that and say, That's not a good amount of should be even more because that's much better. Not really, But you'll see why did that in a second, Also, and this is where it started. Get really interesting. There's a couple of things we can do the sea this will symbol right to the far right would almost miss it unless you looked really closely there. These are called filter blending options When I double click on that instead of letting me change the settings for the filter, it says, Would you like to show or change how the filter is blended? Meaning it's almost like the filters on its own lyric is look at the options blend modes and opacity, just like we have with layers. So it's like, in a sense, it's separated the filter onto its own layer, even though it really hasn't that's the way to think of it. So, for example, I deliberately over blurred that because I discovered a really cool effect. If you blur, weigh more than your eyes can take and then lower the opacity, you get this really cool, soft focus effect that you can't get any other way. In Photoshopped, there's no filter called soft, dreamy focus blur. I wish there waas, but there is. But this is how you do it or I should say and or you could also say. But what if I also on Lee, had it said to darken or lighten or overlays all? Now we're completely changing. So now the photo doesn't look blurry anymore, Even though I blurted heavily now because an overlay mode at 60 something percent it's completely changed the impact of that filter. And among other things, what that means is filters that I used to laugh about because I thought they were completely useless. Now I found ways that they're actually have two interesting possibilities because you can change the settings after the fact. Most filters. There's a few filters like a good example is, um, style. Eyes are find edges. It just there's no options, it just does it. In most of time, you look at and go. But now, if you find edges and then go and change some of these settings suddenly Oh, that looks a little more interesting than ever did before. So that in itself I mean, those officer are really interesting. Let's go back for now to put it back to normal. 100%. You can see the other really interesting part. Is this right here that looks suspiciously like a mask to me? Cause it is, but it's not a layer mask. It's a filter mask, so its a mask specifically for the filter use it just like a layer mask on a layer mask. You paint with black to hide things on a filter mask. You plane with black to hide the mask or to hide the filtration. Say so if I take my brush tool, get it back to normal here, make it nice big, and I decide I don't really want her as blurry. Now that I've done that, maybe I went a little heavy on the overall blurs all. Double click on that and pull it back a little bit. Options that I suppose you could say in one form another. It was possible to before, but nowhere is easily on. The other great part about this is if I say this is a PSD file, that's really important because I want to preserve all this because they're layer based functions even. Only have one layer the next time I open it, I'll look at this and go Oh, yeah, that's right. I did it this way because one of things used to drive me crazy. And I some of you have probably had the same experience. I would be willing to bet that you're working away on some project doing a whole bunch of stuff and then filters and doing painting and glow of stuff. And then you think, Wow, that looks great. And then you open that same document a few months later and all you have it just says background your leg. How did I do that? Because there's no evidence or back up or history to tell you here I could open this document a year from now on. Go. So apparently did a gauzy and apparently sorry I did a Gaussian blur. How much? Okay, that much. And so it's like your reverse engineering. How did I do it and, if necessary, re editing it. So the fact that that is available to you at any time to me is tremendous. Because what I used to do that just to show you the difference was I would duplicate the layer. I would blurt heavily. And then I would actually seem so funny to say this. Now I would rename the Layer Ghazi in Blur 45 so I know what the heck I did. But that was so clumsy. And even then you couldn't mask it like you can hear the fact that all aspects of this could be edited. And if you like, the way this looks you can copied under another document and not start from scratch. So huge advantages. I was just wondering, Can you make these interactions? Um, you could. I mean, yeah, I ball my eyes. You could simply by start recording, convert to smart object. But things like the painting aspect obviously would vary from one where you paint. So you might get right after the point of saying, you know, add the smart filter, blah, blah, blah, and then stop and then manually paint. So you could certainly do that. I also find sometimes just easy to just in effect, copy the filter from one photograph to another. So that's another option is well, so, um, like I said, Smart, obvious. I use it for a lot of things, but I want to make sure I stress the smart filter part because I've talked to some people who they look at their workflow and they're not 100%. They don't quite grasp the whole to window thing with smart objects. But this I think you'll agree. It's pretty easy. Look at and say I could see using that because now that solves the problem. Trying to remember I used to write things down, had a notebook by you in this document. I used these settings so I could try and re do it later on. Now I just open the document. Look at it, go. Okay, there it is. That's a huge advantage, plus the fact that you can build on this the Onley drawback, and it's frankly somewhat of a big one. But it's just the unfortunate reality we just have to live with is you can have multiple filters applied to a smart officer, multiple smart filters. But there's only one mask. So as an example here, I've got this Ghazi in blur thing happening with the mask. If I said I also want to let's do something obvious that's not gonna be are attractive Add noise. You'll see it adds noise to the same place that blurred. I didn't want that too bad, because that's just the way it works. Now there's workarounds that talk to take a lot of effort. But that's the other little minor catch that people run into is they wanted both sharpen and blurred the same smart object. And you really can't because the one mass gonna apply whatever filters you have. However, there are times where, if you know you want to apply the filters to the entire docking without a mask, you could end up with, like, five or six of them and each one go into the blending options. Say this one. I want to be in multiply mode at this opacity. Just keep building on that way. You certainly can't. But as soon as you introduce a mask part of filter, that's the limitation, and there's again ways around it. It's just a little bit clunky, but it works Can you add smart filters in a PSB file inside this morning? Yeah. So, um, if you have everyone's seen the movie inception, you know what that movies about. So if you got that movie, then you'll be one step ahead with smart object because there are times as odd as it sounds. We actually have smart objects inside smart objects because that's just the way that makes sense to go down that path. It seems really weird to say the first, but they're quite often as I'm doing. I'm like, you know, this makes sense at this point. If I made that into a smart object at all, it means is now you have smart objects several levels down and to try and get to the original like, Is it in there? No. Is it in there? And you're like double clicking to try and dig down far enough. I think the farthest I've Argonne was like four levels of smart option that was still a little bit like what's happening, but that just what the circumstances called for in that case, not common, but it's certainly possible