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I'm working on a photomontage using smart objects and am wondering if there is an easy way to keep track of their resolution? I normally work in InDesign and find myself really missing my customized Links panel.

How do you make sure multiple smart objects are suitable for print when working on a complex Photoshop file?

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  • I fear the only way to find out is to open the smart object and look at its size. The only other thing you can do is hit CMD+T for transform. There the size tells you if it is larger than 100%. – Marcus Blättermann Jun 26 '15 at 18:05
  • In most situation you only need to check if you are resize the smart obj more than 100% scale. I think the most easy way to tell if the smart obj good enough to print is at least keep it at least to the same resolution as your document (for example, if you got 300 dpi smart obj and used for 150 dpi document, you may at most scale it up to 200%) – Zeal Lin Jun 29 '15 at 9:28
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This is not easily accomplished and it irritates me as well. I can only see one solution which can be hard to implement, if you haven't thought about it from the beginning.

  1. Make sure that your "mother" document is at the resolution you want (probably 300 ppi).
  2. Make sure that each of your Smart Objects is set to that same resolution. (Double-click them and use Image Size to set the resolution.)
  3. Select a Smart object you want to check and press Ctrl / Cmd + T to check if the Smart object has been scaled above 100%. If it has, it's below your wanted resolution. If it hasn't it's above.
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Your Smartobject-layer has a litle smartobject-icon at the layer preview.

Doubleclick on that. You'll be redirected to the Photoshop Documsnt thats embedded in the Smart Object. Now you see the Smartobject as it gets saved by photoshop, so it should be easy to get the resolution from here.

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  • I would like to know the resolution including scaling, not in the original document. I'll make this clearer in my title. – curious♦ May 19 '18 at 0:24
  • Thanks to your edit I think I understand your issue better now. You want to see effective PPI (Points-Per-Inch) for checking print suitability. In that case you want to use InDesign instead. InDesign can list all the PPI of all the resources. Plus you can specify minimum PPI - there will be a preflight warning if one of your resources is below threshold. – BlueWizard May 19 '18 at 8:13
  • When I design posters & such I create all the resources in Photoshop and Illustrator (mostly Illustrator unless you need to use actual photographs) and then place them inside a InDesign document. That way I can use the best tool for every usecase – BlueWizard May 19 '18 at 8:14
  • This is what I tend to do also but for some projects it just doesn't apply. For example, designing a juice package with a huge montage of fruits on it and hand painted shadows would be too much to manage in InDesign, but I'd still need to make sure every photo used is at a proper resolution. – curious♦ May 20 '18 at 0:01
  • I don't know an easy way. The only way I can think of right now is 1) measure size of smart object (by going into it and then displaying size) 2) measure size of display (maybe use the select tool which displays selected dixels) 3) use calculator to get a rough idea of PPI by dividing previously taken measurements. It works more or less and is reliable. Sadly It's not fast. – BlueWizard May 26 '18 at 18:08
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Go to Windows > Properties a new toolbar will appear, after that you can select a smart object and it will show you the exact dimension

example

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    This tells you the dimensions but not if it has been resized in any way. You would still need to check in the smart object if its larger than the original. – Marcus Blättermann Jun 27 '15 at 2:04

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