Apply Smart Filters

Any filter applied to a Smart Object is a Smart Filter. Smart Filters appear in the Layers panel below the Smart Object layer to which they are applied. Because you can adjust, remove, or hide Smart Filters, they are nondestructive.

You can apply any Photoshop filter (that has been enabled to work with Smart Filters)—except for Lens Blur, Flame Picture Frame, Trees, and Vanishing Point—as a Smart Filter. In addition, you can apply Shadow/Highlight as Smart Filters.

To work with Smart Filters, select a Smart Object layer, choose a filter, and then set filter options. After you apply a Smart Filter, you can adjust, reorder, or delete it.

To expand or collapse the view of Smart Filters, click the triangle next to the Smart Filter icon, displayed to the right of the Smart Object layer in the Layers panel. (This technique also shows or hides Layer Style.) Or, choose Layers panel Options from the Layers panel menu, then select Expand New Effects in the dialog box.

Use filter masks to selectively mask Smart Filter effects.

After you apply a Smart Filter, you can drag it (or an entire group of Smart Filters) onto another Smart Object layer in the Layers panel; press Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) Smart Filters. You can’t drag Smart Filters onto regular layers.

Edit a Smart Filter

If a Smart Filter contains editable settings, you can edit it at any time. You can also edit blending options for Smart Filters.

Edit Smart Filter settings

Edit Smart Filter blending options

Editing Smart Filter blending options is similar to using the Fade command when applying a filter to a traditional layer.

Hide Smart Filters

Reorder, duplicate, or delete Smart Filters

You can reorder Smart Filters in the Layers panel, duplicate them, or delete Smart Filters if you no longer want to apply them to a Smart Object.

Reorder Smart Filters

Duplicate Smart Filters

Delete Smart Filters

• To delete an individual Smart Filter, drag it to the Delete icon  at the bottom of the Layers panel.
• To delete all Smart Filters applied to a Smart Object layer, select the Smart Object layer and choose Layer > Smart Filter > Clear Smart Filters.

Mask Smart Filters

When you apply a Smart Filter to a Smart Object, Photoshop displays an empty (white) mask thumbnail on the Smart Filters line in the Layers panel under the Smart Object. By default, this mask shows the entire filter effect. (If you made a selection before applying the Smart Filter, Photoshop displays the appropriate mask instead of an empty mask on the Smart Filters line in the Layers panel.)

Use filter masks to selectively mask Smart Filters. When you mask Smart Filters, the masking applies to all Smart Filters—you can’t mask individual Smart Filters.

Filter masks work much like layer masks, and you can use many of the same techniques with them. Like layer masks, filter masks are stored as alpha channels in the Channels panel, and you can load their boundaries as a selection.

Like layer masks, you can paint on a filter mask. Areas of the filter that you paint in black are hidden; areas you paint in white are visible; and areas you paint in shades of gray appear in various levels of transparency.

Use the controls in the Masks panel to change the filter mask density, add feathering to the edges of the mask, or invert the mask.

Mask Smart Filter effects

Change filter mask opacity or feather mask edges

Invert a filter mask

Display only the filter mask

Move or copy filter masks

• To move the mask to another Smart Filter Effect, drag the mask to the other Smart Filter Effect.
• To copy the mask, Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) the mask to another Smart Filter Effect.

Disable a filter mask

Delete a Smart Filter mask

• Click the filter mask thumbnail in the Layers panel, then click the Delete icon  in the Masks panel.
• Drag the filter mask thumbnail in the Layers panel to the Delete icon.
• Select the Smart Filter Effect, and choose Layer > Smart Filters > Delete Filter Mask.

Add a filter mask

If you delete a filter mask, you can subsequently add another mask.

• To add an empty mask, select the Smart Object layer, and then click the Filter Mask button in the Masks panel.
• To add a mask based on a selection, make a selection, and then right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the Smart Filters line in the Layers panel, and choose Add Filter Mask.