Photoshop Smart Objects can automate this process and turn dozens of annoying steps into an easy few.
Well make an example of a business card design Ive done for How-To Geek.
Standard American business card sizes are usually 3.5 x 2.
This is the product I came up with.
All the text is editable at this stage, even the How-To Geek headline.
you might start with whatever design you want, business card or not.
Select all of your layers by holding
and clicking each one.
You want to have a solid color layer behind your entire card.
Dont pick the Background layer, and leave your text editable.
Press
to group them all together.
Right-click your new group and choose Convert to Smart Object.
The business card has now painlessly become a Smart Object.
You cant directly edit the text or images anymore!
But what do we gain from that?
Lets take a look.
Go to Image > Canvas Size or simply press
.
Resize your page to 8 x 10.
This is a standard size that nearly any desktop inkjet or laserjet can print without cropping your image.
Weve got plenty of room to lay out our cards on this page for print.
Make eight copies of your business card and arrange them on your page.
For now, these cards are laid out by eye, and more-or-less evenly.
(I can better show this technique in another How-To, on another day.
But for now, this will suffice.)
Do I edit the cards eight times?
Thanks to my smart objects, I edit them only one time.
Right click any of your eight business card smart objects.
Pick Edit Contents from the contextual menu.
Youll get this warning if youve never edited a Smart Object before.
you could safely tell it to never show you this again, but read the warning!
Smart Objects are sort of like Photoshop files within Photoshop files.
The group of text and graphics we made earlier has become Group 2.psb buried within our file.
Youll find that all your layers and graphics are here and editable again.
I edit the text to change Trevors name and qualifications, as well as his URL.
All eight of my business cards have become Trevors, instantly.
When you edit the original smart object, it changes all the copies you have made of it.
With nearly no additional time invested, I can create cards for everyone in the entire company.
Keep in mind, you could change more than simply textany changes to your graphics, colors, etc.
will change once you edit the source Smart Object.
