Question

Creating all the art for a large website often involves a couple dozen 50+mb photoshop files. Frequently, a given module may appear in more than one file.

Is there a way to reference an oft-used module from another file?

For instance - "site-section-2.psd" references "common-module-h.psd", and "site-section-6.psd" also references "common-module-h.psd", so that any time updates are made to "common-module-h.psd", the updates appear in both files which reference it.

Possible?

(maybe with photoshop javascript?)

Answer 1

I ve checked the JSX Photoshop Object Model, and you can access LayerComps, but there is no magic function to save from one file to another. Something like this could be written to disk, from file1.psd for example, then loaded into file2.psd.

It s a bit of a long shot and I don t know if it s worth the trouble.

For web prototyping I use Fireworks and and I m pretty happy. You can easily create symbols (much like in Flash and Illustrator) and even save them to a Common Library, which means it will be easy peasy to keep your navigation items for example up to date, for all the files using it. You can even import PSD files into Fireworks, only not all the filters will be supported.

Don t know if you can keep most of the eye-candy in Photoshop and then assemble reamble versions with ease using Fireworks.

Answer 2

You can try converting all the layers into one smart object and then drag the smart object layer into the new .psd file.

Go to the Layers palette: Window > Layers(F7). LMB SINGLE CLICK the top layer. Scroll down Layer palette until you get to the bottom.

SHIFT + LMB SINGLE CLICK. At this point all the layers should be hilighted.

RMB SINGLE CLICK any of Layer "Titles".

You should see a menu pop up so use the mouse to scroll until you find "Convert to Smart Object". LMB SINGLE CLICK to convert all the layers into one smart object. The smart object can be edited by double clicking it in the Layers palette. You can also drag a smart object from one .PSD into another .PSD. I usually just open both .PSD files and drag the smart object form one Layers palette to the other Layers palette.

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