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knn
Posts: 5
Can I use FF with smart objects (smart layers) = as a smart filter?
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fisholith
Posts: 24
Filters: 2
Hey Knn, smile:)

Off hand I don't think you can unfortunately.
Though I can imagine situations where it could be handy.

My typical work around is to make a copy of the smart object, hide the original, then rasterize and filter the copy. If I ever need to change the smart object, I can change the original and repeat the copy-and-filter process. It's not exactly elegant, but it works okay in a lot of cases.



As for FF as a smart filter, I think I might have an idea as to why it hasn't been given that functionality.
If FF ran as a smart filter, any change that required re-processing would force the Filter Forge engine to reprocess the image.

That might not be too bad for simple FF filters but for some of the more complex ones it could be a problem if Photoshop regularly became unresponsive while the filter was reapplied.

I'm not sure how smart filters are handled behind the scenes in Photoshop, but if the FF engine had to be launched and closed each time a smart filter needed an update, that could make things even slower.

Just conjecture though.
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stevedipaola
Posts: 21
I do very sophisticated work with photoshop and FF - so I would think if you do not mind moving things (images, layers) around that you can do something like you want. I am using PS actions to script what I want in a small group of commands ( or PS macro of steps). Then at times I make a set of actions into a PS droplet - which can make it a command line exe outside of photoshop. Then I use batch files that can call photoshop and FF in very sophisticated ways. Basically like a programming language of 10 =- 20 image processing setups. This way I have outside of both routines I can call that act on any images in a folder. The key is to do something in PS as an action then save out an interim image, than use that interim image to do something else all using actions/droplets ( never actually dropping anything on to the droplet but working on the interim image. I have used smart layers in this way where a FF output is sitting on another layer. A word of caution that many things about layers in PS break when using actions ( renaming or moving layers around).

-steve
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