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Work with Illustrator artwork in Photoshop

Enjoy a seamless transition when using Illustrator artwork in Photoshop

The interoperability improvement is for Photoshop users who use Illustrator in their workflows and want an improved experience when copying-pasting their content from Illustrator to Photoshop.

The Paste As > Layers option is the new addition to the Illustrator-Photoshop interoperability workflows along with the existing options of Smart Object, Pixels, Path, and Shape LayerThis new option supports the import of Illustrator layers while maintaining their visual and functional efficacy and layer structure. 

Improved interoperability with Illustrator

When copying objects from Illustrator and pasting them into Photoshop, each object will be in its own layer, mostly editable,  and retain as many properties as possible.

Note:

If your object has Photoshop-supported properties, it will be pasted in the canvas as an editable shape path or text, else as a non-editable pixel (rasterized) layer, with just the look and feel retained from Illustrator.

With the ability to copy an object from Illustrator and paste in Photoshop, you get so many advantages.

You can import Illustrator layers into Photoshop and continue to work on them, all the while maintaining the same visual and functional standards. You also get to retain the same layer structure in Photoshop as done in Illustrator!

How to initiate an interop workflow from Illustrator to Photoshop

  1. Launch Illustrator and open the file from which you would like to use content in Photoshop.

  2. Copy the content from Illustrator and paste in Photoshop using the Layers option from the dialog box. 

  3. Some copy-paste features that you can try out with this latest updated workflow are given here. 

    • Vector shapes and paths are created using the Shape tool or Shaper tool as Shape and Path Layers. These can include line, rectangle and rounded rectangle, polygons, ellipse, star, and path created using the pen tool or compound path. 
    • Text objects that are created using Type tools as Text Layers can include point text, area text, and on-path text.
    • Clipping masks as vector masks. 
    • Pixel layers, symbols, Smart Objects, Patterns, Gradient Mesh, Groups, Distort Layers, Flare Tool as pixel layers.
    Copy-paste from Ai to Ps

    Once you paste your object as a type layer or a shape layer, it will have its own properties panel, where you can edit its appearance and modify the text or shape respectively. 

Interop scenarios and limitations while copy-pasting

Know more about the various interop scenarios and respective behavioral differences when you copy-paste objects between Illustrator and Photoshop

Alert Message

Scenario

Behavior

Some content in this selection will be rasterized.

Shapes and paths with the following properties are not supported in Photoshop: 

  • Unsupported corner types like Chamfer and Inverted Round.
  • Stroke Dashed Line that aligns dashes to corners and path ends, adjusting lengths to fit
  • Stroke arrowheads and styles
  • Gradients in Fill and Stroke
  • Patterns in Fill and Stroke
  • Fill visibility off
  • Multi-stroke and Multi-Fill
  • Stroke and Fill opacity
  • Effects
  • Symbols, Charts, Mesh, Compound Shapes, and other Illustrator objects that are not vector shapes or paths

Text objects with the following properties are not supported in Photoshop:

  • Text objects with patterns or gradients in fill or stroke
  • Threaded text objects
  • Text objects with wrap enabled
  • Text objects with opacity Mask
  • Text objects with Effects

Miter limit and non-zero winding fill rule for overlapping paths are not supported by Photoshop, so they are not copied to maintain functional fidelity. 

Objects are rasterized and placed as pixel layer, to maintain visual fidelity.

Some of the pasted text layers contain missing fonts. These fonts will be substituted and the appearance may change.

Illustrator text objects having fonts that are unavailable in Photoshop will be pasted as text layers with the default font. These text layers will show a troubleshoot icon in the layers panel. You can double-click on these text layers or go to Type > Manage Missing Fonts to manage the missing fonts.

Text layer is pasted with the default font.

One or more shapes will be pasted as non-live shapes.

  • Paste regular polygons with sides > 100.
  • Paste irregular polygon with unequal angle or width of the sides.
  • Paste any live shape with shear.

Instead of live shape, the object is pasted as a non-live shape layer.

Illustrator placed objects will be pasted without effects.

Placed object has a linked file with effects. In this case, the effects from the linked file will be dropped when copy-pasted.

Linked files with effects are copied to Photoshop without the effect.

The selection contains one or more Illustrator-placed objects whose linked file does not exist. These objects won’t be pasted.

The placed object could not be pasted because the linked file was not found.

Linked objects with issues are not copied to Photoshop.

Can't paste the Illustrator-placed object with the linked file. You can continue to paste without it.

Linked file in copied artwork could not be placed in Photoshop, due to reasons like unsupported file format and denied access to file path.

Linked objects with issues are not copied to Photoshop.

Copied content from an Illustrator document has a different color mode. We'll convert it to match your Photoshop document, but colors might change.

Copied content from Illustrator is in a different color mode than the Photoshop document it is being pasted into.

Color mode is converted to match the color mode of the document in Photoshop. Color mismatch may be seen as per the conversion algorithm.

Can only paste up to 288 point stroke width.

Copied shape or path has a stroke width > 288 points.

Shape or path is copied with a stroke width of 288 points.

Could not complete the Paste command because Photoshop doesn't support Illustrator clipboard content which contains non-native art, legacy text, or freeform gradient objects.

Non-native art, legacy text, or freeform gradient objects are unsupported at present.

Non-native art, legacy text, or freeform gradient objects are not copied to Photoshop.

Interoperability enhancements

Introduced in the April 2022 release (version 23.3)

Type Objects

You can bring point text, area text, and on-path text objects created in Illustrator to Photoshop as live editable text layers. Once pasted in Photoshop, you can edit various properties of text layers, such as text color, size, font, alignment, etc. using the Properties Panel.

Introduced in the October 2021 release (version 23.0)

Vector Shapes

Bring in Photoshop-supported shapes, such as Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, and Line, from Illustrator as live shape layers. Conversely, the Star shape, not available in Photoshop, is imported as a path.

You can also import colors in shape fill from Illustrator to Photoshop as live shape layers. Plus, you can retain the layer name as is when importing from Illustrator to Photoshop.

Note:

In the Ai-Ps workflow, you can bring in some patterns and gradients in shape fill as well as some features like corner types and strokes as pixel layers.

Vector Paths

You can bring in Paths and Compound Paths from Illustrator to Photoshop as non-live shape layers with the look and feel retained as is. You can also edit their properties in the Properties tab, like changing the color and shape of the path and strokes, as well as modifying the anchor points for changing the path.

Note:

When you create a compound shape in Illustrator and import it in Photoshop, it is pasted as a pixel layer and becomes non-editable.

Clipping Masks 

Clipping masks created in Illustrator are mapped as vector masks or rasterized when importing to Photoshop. When pasting clipping masks, Photoshop users will be prompted to select their choice of pasting - as vector mask or rasterize.  

When importing into Photoshop, a group will be created corresponding to the clip group in Illustrator and a vector mask will be applied to this group corresponding to the clipping path from Illustrator. This ensures visual and functional fidelity from Illustrator are maintained as the group's descendants will clip to the vector mask in Photoshop.

When created on unsupported objects, or objects with unsupported properties, the clipping masks will be rasterized to maintain the same visual effect in Photoshop. 

Note:

You need to remember that if pasted as a vector mask, the fill and stroke will be lost.

Other Enhancements

All embedded and linked artwork created in Illustrator will open in Photoshop. However, Illustrator objects such as symbols, charts, mesh, and repeat will be rasterized when pasted in Photoshop.

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