: Is it possible to divide one Photoshop document into multiple source files? I am new to Photoshop and therefore in need to get familiar with it fast. I wonder, if there is a way to divide

@Cooney243

Separate assets assembled in one layout is Photoshop's biggest weakness. Probably because it's not a layout app, even though the web design community has long tried to contort it into one.

The best way to have many assets arranged in a layout (or multiple layout files) and editable separately is with a layout app like Illustrator. Illustrator will allow you to maintain remote assets that are truly linked and not embedded in the file. When the files are updated, AI prompts you to refresh the link.

InD is a great layout app but it's not particularly web export friendly (unless CS6 has changed dramatically).

Photoshop's smart objects are great except that they are contained in the layout itself. If you want to place a logo, icon, or any element that is still in a state of flux, you'll have to reimport it every time there's an update.

With my Illustrator web layouts I have whole regions of the page set up like include files: header, footer, product modules, etc. It's particularly efficient in a team setting using something like SVN.

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@Ogunnowo857

Sounds to me like Smart object is exactly what you're looking for.



For example: Your main document may have a button object that is formed with multiple layers. You can select all of those layers and combine them into one smart object.

When you go edit the smart object, another document opens up where you have only those layers showing. Then you can just save the changes and go back to your main document.



There's quite a lot to know about smart objects, so you might wanna to read some more about them.

On that note.

Here's a couple quotes from that page (just in case).


About Smart Objects

Smart Objects are layers that contain image data from raster or vector
images, such as Photoshop or Illustrator files. Smart Objects preserve
an image’s source content with all its original characteristics,
enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer.

You can create Smart objects using several methods: by using the Open
As Smart Object command; placing a file, pasting data from
Illustrator; or converting one or more Photoshop layers to Smart
Objects.

With Smart Objects, you can:


Perform nondestructive transforms. You can scale, rotate, skew,
distort, perspective transform, or warp a layer without losing
original image data or quality because the transforms don’t affect the
original data.
Work with vector data, such as vector artwork from Illustrator, that
otherwise would be rasterized in Photoshop.
Perform nondestructive filtering. You can edit filters applied to
Smart Objects at any time.
Edit one Smart Object and automatically update all its linked
instances.
Apply a layer mask that’s either linked or unlinked to the Smart
Object layer.
Try various designs with low-resolution placeholder images that you
later replace with final versions.


You can’t perform operations that alter pixel data—such as painting,
dodging, burning, or cloning—directly to a Smart Object layer, unless
it is first converted into a regular layer, which will be rasterized.
To perform operations that alter pixel data, you can edit the contents
of a Smart Object, clone a new layer above the Smart Object layer,
edit duplicates of the Smart Object, or create a new layer.


To create smart object from layers:
- Select bunch of layers.
- Right click one of them and choose Convert to smart object.




Edit the content of a Smart Object

When you edit a Smart Object, the source content is opened in either
Photoshop (if the content is raster data or a camera raw file) or
Illustrator (if the content is vector PDF). When you save changes to
the source content, the edits appear in all linked instances of the
Smart Object in the Photoshop document.


Select the Smart Object from the Layers panel, and do one of the
following:


Choose Layer > Smart Objects > Edit Contents.
Double-click the Smart Objects thumbnail in the Layers panel.

Click OK to close the dialog box.
Make edits to the source content
file, then choose File > Save.
Photoshop updates the Smart Object to
reflect the changes you made. (If you don’t see the changes, make the
Photoshop document containing the Smart Object active).






Duplicate a Smart Object

In the Layers panel, select a Smart Object layer, and do one of the
following:


To create a duplicate Smart Object that is linked to the
original, choose Layer > New > Layer Via Copy, or drag the Smart
Object layer to the Create A New Layer icon at the bottom of the
Layers panel. Edits you make to the original affect the copy and vice
versa.
To create a duplicate Smart Object that isn’t linked to the original,
choose Layer > Smart Objects > New Smart Object Via Copy. Edits you
make to the original don’t affect the copy.


A new Smart Object appears in the Layers panel with the same name as
the original and “copy” as a suffix.




One thing that I forgot to mention.

There is no straight up way to unfold a smart object back to bunch of layers in your main document. If you need to do that at some point, you will have to duplicate the layers from your smart object document into the main document.

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@Samaraweera207

Slices might help. They take a single Photoshop document and slice it into many parts, as web-friendly separate image files.
help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7570a.html
If you're looking for the opposite, where you can edit many files and have them combined into one, then you can probably use Smart Objects. That sounds a bit cumbersome though. I think Slices are probably what you're after.

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