Paste Adobe Illustrator art into Photoshop

Last updated on Oct 10, 2026

Learn how to copy artwork from Illustrator and paste it in Adobe Photoshop on desktop using the clipboard to create Smart Objects, pixels, paths, or shape layers.

Quickly transfer vector artwork from Illustrator directly into your Photoshop document. When you paste, Photoshop offers multiple format options, including Smart Objects that preserve editability, or you can convert the artwork to pixels, paths, or shape layers.

Use the Illustrator clipboard to paste artwork directly into an open Photoshop document. For embedding or linking external files, use the Place Embedded or Place Linked commands instead. The paste behavior depends on your Illustrator clipboard preferences—you can configure them to rasterize artwork automatically or to display format options when pasting.

Configure Illustrator clipboard preferences

In Illustrator, select Edit > Preferences > File Handling & Clipboard (Windows) or Illustrator > Settings > File Handling & Clipboard (macOS).

To automatically rasterize artwork when pasting into Photoshop, turn off both the PDF and AICB (No Transparency Support) options.

To display paste format options in Photoshop, turn on both the PDF and AICB (No Transparency Support) options.

Note

If you turn off both clipboard options in Illustrator, the artwork rasterizes automatically when pasted into Photoshop, and you won't see the Paste dialog box.

Copy and paste artwork from Illustrator

In Illustrator, select the artwork you want to copy.

Select Edit > Copy.

In Photoshop, open the document where you want to paste the artwork.

Select Edit > Paste.

In the Paste dialog box, select your preferred format and then select OK.

If you selected Smart Object or Pixels, transform the artwork as needed by dragging corner handles to scale, dragging outside the bounding box to rotate, or entering specific values in the options bar.

Select the Commit button in the options bar or press Enter (Windows) or Return (macOS) to place the artwork.

The Paste dialog box offers four format options. Smart Object creates a vector Smart Object layer that you can scale and transform without loss of quality, and the file data is embedded in your document. Pixels rasterizes the artwork as pixels on a new layer after you commit any transformations. Path pastes the artwork as a vector path into the currently selected layer, which you can edit with pen and selection tools. Shape Layer creates a new shape layer containing a path filled with your foreground color.