May 14
Smart Filters on text in Photoshop CS3
2008 at 08.58 am posted by Veerle Pieters
I’ve mentioned the power of Smart Filters before in some previous articles. First the layer needs to be turned into a Smart Object and then Filters can be applied in a smart, non-destructive flexible way. Now I was thinking, how about text? Can we do this with text and keep it editable? In CS2 we can’t…
...but in CS3 we can and here is how :)
Convert for Smart Filters
After you've typed your text, select the layer and go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters. Your layer is now turned into a Smart Object.
Apply any filter
Now you can apply any filter, with the exception of Lens Blur (don't ask me why), and the text will remain editable. However, text has a flat color and so apart from the Distort and Blur filters, applying filters such as the Artistic filter will not always give you the result you're hoping for. You might try to make the layer a bit more interesting material first before applying certain Filters. You can do this by adding some Layer Effects first, because the Filters will be applied to the layer including the Layer Effects.
Add Layer Effects
You can either add Layer Effects first before you convert your layer into a Smart Object or you can double click the Smart Object thumbnail on your layer in the Layers panel and add a Layer Effect from there. To do this double click the right side of the layer that holds your text (in Smart Object mode).
In this mode the Filters applied on the text will not be shown. Same when you transform the text. Photoshop will warn you that the Smart Filters applied to this layer will be temporarily turned off and they will be applied again after the object has been transformed.
Go as far as you want to go
You can go as far as you want to go. Remember you can keep on experimenting with Filters and Layer Effects, and you can edit your text. Here is how my Layers panel looks after my little experiment:
Now it's your turn. Have some fun :)
Want to learn more?
A good and not expensive source to learn more about Illustrator, Photoshop, or web design is by joining the Tuts+ sites. You get access to the source files for just $9 a month. So your ONE membership gives you access to members-only content for ALL the Plus sites. I've written a tutorial for the Vector Tuts section.
21served
1
Nice tutorial! I have not used Smart Filters yet, but I plan on it.
2
this is so good to know…i hated not being able to change text after applying an effect…thanks!
3
Yeah, it sucks that lens blur doesn’t work though, that’s one of my favorites =( go figure.
4
This can be used for some real time-saving, as well. On my website, I wanted to have reflected text for the links. But I also wanted them warped, faded, and blurred. Instead of hand-creating each and every one, including the reflection I used a duplicated smart object.
Duplicated SOs share the same base, so when I make changes in one, it automatically updates ALL of the other layers! It makes complex effects easy to replicate.
Now, to create a new main link, I just double-click on one of the smart object layers, edit the text, and save it back out. It takes about 30s to recreate a fairly complex effect.
5
Losing the antialiasing of the text is a huge disadvantage to me. It is no big deal with high resolution work but when it comes to web design pixels matter. Anyway this is a great feature and a big time saver when it comes to marketing adjustments to existing material you have already rasterized.
6
That’s why i love CS3!
I never knew that this function was possible too, a smart object.
It is realy usefull because as mentioned above, if you have applied an effect and can’t edit the text anymore, it is annoying.
Thanks for helping me out.
7
Veerle, Very nice again. I tested this out tonight with great effect.
8
Nice tutorial, as always :D
Personally I am glad that CS3 has finally added Smart Filters as part of their range. Let’s see what news CS4 brings ;)
9
Nice tutorial. I’ve never used smart filters. Can’t wait to try them out.
10
Very nice tutorial, i’ll try it! Thanks Veerle.
11
Lass, I daresay that you’ve a good year’s worth of your pretty posts about all the new little fancy bits and pieces Adobe has packed underneath the skirts of this latest Photoshop. Mostly because a good number of us old salts are so set in our ways…. we occasionally need a good smack upside our skulls to make us back up and consider something new.
It might as well be a pretty wench what be slappin’ us…. thanks lass!
12
Another reason to install CS3, so I installed CS3. :)
Thank you for this tutorial!
13
Veerle, you explained really nicely i was looking for this smart filter thing i have to work on my graphics using these so have a very good uck all
:)
14
Happy you all find this a cool tip :)
Nikola said:
I think you probably forgot to change your text rendering method to ‘Crisp’, ‘Sharp’ ‘Smooth’ or ‘Strong’ (in the Toolbar). If it’s set to ‘None’ then it will be rendered this way and no anti-aliasing will be used of course. I believe you can change this setting at any time since your text stays editable. My example is 72 dpi and fine, but then again I used ‘Crisp’ as text rendering method.
15
Cool ! I can’t wait to make it into practise.
16
Another great tutorial.
The enhancement to smart objects/filters that I would very much like to see (not too greedy!) would be ability to mask individual smart filter layers separately. (ex- I want to super-blur 90 percent of image, and also to super-sharpen the 10 area of interest. My understanding is that I can make a smart object/filter for the blur, then copy and rasterize, then make THAT layer a smart object, and add SF sharpen.) It would be great to be able to accomplish this by separately masking each SF layer (one mask for the blur, one for the sharpen).
Can’t complain about the magic of SO/SF as it is, however!
17
This is an impressive site. A great tool for keeping up to date the smart objects tool has answered a lot of problems for me thanks
18
Hi-
I want to refer folks to the latest Layers mag, May/June 2008, p. 48- discussion of ‘Nested Smart Objects’. This ‘work around’ technique DOES allow filter masks to be applied SEPARATELY to Smart Filters. (Concept: you can’t separately mask filters placed in the same SO-the SO Filter Mask applies to all at once. Don’t ask me why… So, one ‘nests’ SOs, one within another; NOW, each SO has its own Filter Mask, and you can mask whatever filters are used in that particular SO).
This is one of those things that is hard to explain, but works great once you get comfortable with it. I found the article a bit confusing (it was doing ‘too many things at once’). But the key idea is to place the mask at the Smart Filter level (right click the Smart Filters level, select create mask); and to achieve separately masked filters, use Nested SOs each with its own Filter Mask.
Makes for very large files, but wow! Very powerful- amazing, actually.
19
Good tips. I like smart objects
20
I cannot believe how handy smart objects are, they offer so much flexibility to designs now.
21
Excellent tutorial. Never knew you could do this in CS3 but ill be experimenting with these and see what i can come up with.