Place files

Open the Photoshop document that is the destination for the placed art or photo.

Do one of the following:

• (Photoshop) Choose File > Place Embedded or File > Place Linked, select the file you want to place, and select Place.

• (Bridge) Select the file and choose File > Place > In Photoshop.

If you are placing a PDF or an Illustrator (Ai) file, the Open As Smart Object dialog box appears. Select the page or image you want to place, set the Crop options, and select OK. For more information on the Open As Smart Object dialog box options, see Place PDF or Illustrator files in Photoshop.

The placed artwork appears inside a bounding box at the center of the Photoshop image. The artwork maintains its original aspect ratio; however, if the artwork is larger than the Photoshop image, it is resized to fit.

(Optional) Reposition or transform the placed artwork by doing any of the following:

• To reposition the placed art, position the pointer inside the bounding box of the placed artwork and drag, or in the options bar, enter a value for X to specify the distance between the center point of the placed artwork and the left edge of the image. Enter a value for Y to specify the distance between the center point of the placed artwork and the top edge of the image.

• To scale the placed art, drag one of the corner handles of the bounding box or enter values for W and H in the options bar. When dragging, hold down the Shift key to constrain proportions.

• To rotate the placed art, position the pointer outside the bounding box (the pointer turns into a curved arrow) and drag, or enter a value (in degrees) for the Rotation option  in the options bar. The artwork rotates around the center point of the placed artwork. To adjust the center point, drag it to a new location, or click a handle on the Center Point icon  in the options bar.

• To skew the placed art, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) and drag a side handle of the bounding box.

• To warp the placed art, choose Edit > Transform > Warp and then choose a warp from the Warp Style pop-up menu in the options bar.

  If you choose Custom from the Warp Style pop-up menu, drag the control points, a segment of the bounding box or mesh, or an area within the mesh to warp the image.

If you’re placing a PDF, EPS, or Adobe Illustrator file, set the Anti-alias option in the options bar as desired. To blend edge pixels during rasterization, select the Anti-alias option. To produce a hard-edged transition between edge pixels during rasterization, deselect the Anti-alias option.

Do one of the following:

• Click Commit  in the options bar or press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to commit the placed artwork to a new layer.

• Click Cancel  in the options bar, or press Esc to cancel the placement.

With the destination Photoshop document open, place a PDF or Adobe Illustrator file.

Under Select in the Place PDF dialog box, select Page or Image, depending on what elements of the PDF document you want to import. If the PDF file has multiple pages or images, click the thumbnail of the page or file you want to place.

Under Options, choose from the Crop To menu to specify what part of the PDF or Illustrator (AI) document to include:

Crops to the smallest rectangular region that includes all the text and graphics of the page. This option eliminates extraneous white space.

Crops to the original size of the page.

Crops to the clipping region (crop margins) of the PDF file.

Crops to the region specified in the PDF file for accommodating limitations inherent in production processes such as cutting, folding, and trimming.

Crops to the region specified for the intended finished size of the page.

Crops to the region specified in the PDF file for placing the PDF data into another application.

Click OK to close the Place PDF dialog box.

If necessary, set any positioning, scaling, skewing, rotating, warping, or anti-aliasing options in the options bar.

Click Commit  to place the artwork as a Smart Object on a new layer of the destination document.

In Adobe Illustrator, specify preferences for the copy-and-paste behavior:

• To automatically rasterize the art when pasting it into a Photoshop document, turn off the PDF and the AICB (No Transparency Support) options in the File Handling & Clipboard preferences.

• To paste the art as a Smart Object, rasterized image, path, or shape layer, turn on the PDF and the AICB (No Transparency Support) options in the File Handling & Clipboard preferences.

Open a file in Adobe Illustrator, select the art you want to copy, and choose Edit > Copy.

In Photoshop, open the document that you want to paste the Adobe Illustrator art into and then choose Edit > Paste.

In the Paste dialog box, select how you want to paste the Adobe Illustrator art and then click OK:

Pastes the art as a Vector Smart Object that can be scaled, transformed, or moved without degrading the image. As the art is placed, its file data is embedded in the Photoshop document on a separate layer.

Pastes the art as pixels that can be scaled, transformed, or moved before it is rasterized and placed on its own layer in the Photoshop document.

Pastes the art as a path that can be edited with the pen tools, Path Selection tool, or Direct Selection tool. The path is pasted into the layer that’s selected in the Layers panel.

Pastes the art as a new shape layer (a layer containing a path filled with the foreground color).

If you selected Smart Object or Pixels in the Paste dialog box, make any transformations you wish, and then click Enter or Return to place the art.