Quick Tips

Smart Object warp

If you have a Smart Object made from a Photoshop document or object on a layer, you can warp it any way you like. However, if the Smart Object is a Vector Smart Object from Illustrator, you cannot warp it. The solution is simple, yet odd: convert the Vector Smart Object to a Smart Object (from the Layers panel's flyout menu) and then it can be warped. If you need to edit the original Illustrator artwork, you'll have to double-click on the Smart Object's layer thumbnail to open a Photoshop document that contains the Vector Smart Object. Double-click on its layer thumbnail to open it in Illustrator. (It's easier than it sounds.)

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4 comments

  1. Toby Fairchild 2 March, 2009 at 22:54 Reply

    Super Tip Corey. This will save having to do even more cumbersome workarounds if someone didn’t know this easy one.

  2. Joel Mertz 3 January, 2014 at 16:02 Reply

    These are the kinds of quirks that drive me nuts about Photoshop. Aren’t we on version 13 now? You have to convert a smart object into a smart object? That’s just dumb.

  3. Marco Belletz 12 May, 2014 at 10:39 Reply

    Yeah the only problem is that if you scale it up it act as a raster image end it does not mantain the resolution of the vector object itself. You have to resize it bigger than you have to distort to, THEN convert it to a smart object, and then distort it.

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