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How to use Smart Objects to make photo templates

Each day it seems more important to work faster and smarter so you can be more productive. If you’re processing photos, one of the ways you can do that is by setting up Smart Object document templates. They let you apply the same effect to several images either immediately or over a period of time.

Today we’ll set up a document template that converts a color image to black and white, gives it a sepia (brown) tint, and a darkened edge vignette. All you have to do when you’re finished is swap out the photo. Read on!

Step 1: Fire up Photoshop and choose File > Open As Smart Object. Navigate to where the image lives on your hard drive and press Open (you can use a variety of file formats including Raw, JPEG, TIFF, EPS, etc.). This will create a new document containing the image as a Smart Object (note the little Smart Object badge on the layer thumbnail circled below).

Step 2: Create a Black & White adjustment layer by using the new Adjustments panel in CS4 (shown below at left), or by clicking the half black/half white circle at the bottom of the Layers panel (shown below at right).

Step 3: If you’re using CS4, you’ll see a set of sliders appear in the Adjustments panel. If you’re in CS3 a dialog will open with the same set of sliders. In either case, tweak the resulting color sliders until you get a nice high contrast, black and white image. NOTE: If you’re in CS3, don’t close the Black & White dialog just

Step 4: Next, turn on the Tint checkbox to add a color tint. If you’re in CS4, this checkbox lives at the top of the Adjustments panel, above the sliders you tweaked in the step above. If you’re in CS3, it lives at the bottom of the Black & White dialog. For this example, go ahead and leave the color set to the default light brown. TIP: In the future you can change the color of the tint by clicking the little color swatch to the right of the checkbox in CS4, or by using the rainbow sliders at the bottom of the dialog in CS3.

Step 5: Over in your Layers panel, click once to select the Smart Object photo layer and then choose Filters > Distort > Lens Correction. In the resulting, honkin’ big dialog, turn off the grid checkbox at the very bottom so you can see what the heck you’re doing. Next, mouse over to the right side of the dialog and locate the section called Vignette. Grab the Amount slider and drag it all the way to the left; the edges of your image will darken. To darken them a little more, drag the Midpoint slider slightly to the left. Press OK when you’re finished.

NOTE: Don’t be alarmed that your image appears in color. You’re seeing the original image in the filter’s preview window, sans the Black & White adjustment layer you created earlier.

Here’s the final result:

Step 6: Save your template by choosing File > Save As and give it a clever name like “My Way Cool Smart Sepia Template” and click Save.

Step 7: To swap photos, mouse over to your Layers panel and Ctrl-click (right-click on a PC) the Smart Object photo layer. Choose Replace Contents from the resulting menu,  navigate to where the new image lives, and click Place.

Take a peek in your Layers panel and you’ll see that the photo has changed:

You’ll also see that the new photo has taken on all the effects of the original:

See how easy that was? There’s no end to the creative templates you can make using Smart Objects in this manner. Sure you could set up an action instead, but they can be fussy and difficult to troubleshoot, whereas Smart Objects couldn’t be easier.

Until next time, may the smart template force be with you all!