Photoshop Inception: A dream within a dream within a dream

Did you know you could recreate the film Inception using Adobe’s Photohop? There are some things you just can’t do within Photoshop, like using non-destructive effects on some Smart Objects or use the ‘Free Transform’ Tool… But you can if you add a little Inception in the mix!

Most people already know if you place a PSD inside a PSD as a Smart Object you can make it smaller and scale back to it’s original size again without losing quality. But using a placed PSD inside a PSD will also allow you to use non-destructive effects. The kind you can change afterwards. This is great because as a designer you try to work as non-destructive as possible.

You can take this to another level if you place and Illustrator .ai file inside a PSD as a Smart Object and place that inside another PSD (as a Smart Object). Illustrator is a great vector App, but the ‘Free Transform Tool’ of Photohop is so much more easier to use than Illustrator’s ‘free transform’. If you place an Illustator object inside a PSD and place that inside another PSD you can transform at you’re heart’s desire. (But do keep track of what PSD or Smart Object you’re working in. I wouldn’t want you to get lost!)


1: a PSD within a PSD (Smart Object)



2: Opening it shows the PSD containing a Smart Object



3: Opening the Smart Object shows the Adobe Illustrator File



4: The result: Free Transform of the entire set of objects!



Hat Tip to Der Fritz for this nice Photoshop Experiment