Smart layers on PSD file?

[alefleaf]

I recently cancelled my Adobe CC subscription as the only thing I used it for was putting together vinyl LP mock ups.

 

On Photoshop ,the template I used has smart layers which when double clicked open a separate document and you can easily drop the cover art into, which then places the artwork into the PSD and applies the preset effects. 

 

On both Affinity Designer and Photo I cannot see a way to use these smart layers. Double clicking (as I would do in Photoshop) does nothing, is there another way to work with smart layers that I've missed, or is this feature not available?


 Hopefully the image explains what I am trying to get to work

[MEB]

Hi alefleaf,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

Currently Affinity apps don't support Photoshop Smart objects. They are converted in regular pixel layers on import so it's not possible to edit them as you would do in Photoshop (double-clicking the layer).

You can build similar mockups using Embedded documents in Affinity apps. We do hope to add support for Photoshop's smart objects in a future version later.

[Timmiej84]

I tried the trial of both Designer and Photo and stumbled upon the same 'issue'. I have hundreds of documents which rely on this functionality. This is also the only flaw i could find so far, but it is a really big one..

 

 

[MEB]

Hi Timmiej84,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

As far as i know we do intend to add support for smart objects at some point but currently there's no way around it. You can however use Affinity embedded document functionality to achieve a similar effect dragging an afdesign/afphoto file to inside an opened document. Clicking twice on it on canvas will open the embedded document in another document tab for editing.

[digital]

On 3/21/2018 at 7:47 PM, MEB said:

Hi Timmiej84,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

As far as i know we do intend to add support for smart objects at some point but currently there's no way around it. You can however use Affinity embedded document functionality to achieve a similar effect dragging an afdesign/afphoto file to inside an opened document. Clicking twice on it on canvas will open the embedded document in another document tab for editing.

Not even close to smart object functions. For example, when i deforming an embedded document, it automatically becomes a pixel layer. 

[eobet]

On 3/21/2018 at 3:47 PM, MEB said:

Hi Timmiej84,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

As far as i know we do intend to add support for smart objects at some point but currently there's no way around it. You can however use Affinity embedded document functionality to achieve a similar effect dragging an afdesign/afphoto file to inside an opened document. Clicking twice on it on canvas will open the embedded document in another document tab for editing.

It's 2019 now and I've seen people ask about this in 2016 even (probably older).

Just now, I encountered such a simple thing as wanting a non-destructive resizing in Photo... an image layer in Designer must be non-destructive, but once you go pixel in Photo, there seems to be no way back. I'm guessing I'll soon be wanting a perspective distort or even mesh warp to be non-destructive, so hopefully this is such an old request that it's now high on the list for the developers to implement next!

EDIT: I just noticed that my pixel layers remember their rotation transforms and don't seem to get very blurry from scaling up and down in Photo... is there partial "smart" features available already?

[mac_heibu]

Other than pixel layers image layers always are nondestructive and preserve their original state.