ABSTRACT
The ‘Smart’ way to fi lter Th e concept of non-destructive editing is the future of editing for photographers and is ever growing in popularity and acceptance. Now many dedicated amateurs are working like professionals by embracing ways of enhancing and editing that don’t destroy or change the original pixels in the end result. Masking techniques, Adjustment Layers and the use of Smart Objects are the foundation technologies of many of these techniques. But try as we may some changes have just not been possible to apply non-destructively. Filtering is one area in particular where this is the case. For example, applying a sharpening fi lter to a picture irreversibly changes the pixels in the photo forever. For this reason many of us have been applying such fi lters to copies of our original document whilst all the time dreaming of a better way. Well the better way arrived in CS3 which included for the fi rst time a new fi ltering option called Smart Filters and yes, you guessed it, this technology allowed users to apply a fi lter to an image non-destructively. Cool! Based around the Smart Object technology fi rst introduced into Photoshop in CS2, applying a Smart Filter is a two-step process. First the image layer needs to be converted to a Smart Object. Th is can be done via the new entry in the Filter menu, Convert for Smart Filters, or by selecting the image layer and then choosing Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Objects. Next pick the fi lter you want to apply and adjust the settings as you would normally before clicking OK.
