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Adding Content to Libraries
Now that we have an understanding of what Libraries are, let’s see how to add content and formatting to a Library. You can either drag content into the Libraries panel or capture content and formatting from selected content. All of that content is stored in your Library and synched with the Creative Cloud so that it can be accessed elsewhere.
I’m in Illustrator, working on some web design content, and I’ve selected a series of vector shapes that make up a logo. I’d like to save the logo into my Library so I can drag it out from the Libraries panel in Photoshop and use it in my web design. To save content into the Libraries panel (see Figure 3), either drag the content in or click the Add Graphic button at the bottom of the Libraries panel to add the content to the default Library. Depending on your internet connection speed, the content is then synced to the Creative Cloud and made available to other apps like Photoshop.
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Figure 3 Add graphic content to a Library
By adding vector content to your Library in Illustrator, you will see an “Ai” to the right of the Library item thumbnail in the Libraries panel. This indicates that it came from Illustrator. Graphic content like vector artwork added to your Library from within Photoshop will have a “Ps” to the right of the Library item in the list. If you want to edit the original Library item content, you can double-click the Library item in the list to open it and make edits if you like. You need to open the “Ai” content while in Illustrator and the “Ps” content while in Photoshop. Updating an item in the Library will not update the graphic content you dragged into a document. The awesome thing is that vector content created in either application (Illustrator or Photoshop) will remain vector.
Heading over to Photoshop and opening the Libraries panel (Window > Libraries), the vector content will appear after the default Library (My Library) has finished syncing with the Creative Cloud. The content in your Libraries is synced with Creative Cloud so that you always have access to the latest version (see Figure 4).
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Figure 4 The same Library content in Photoshop
I can then drag that content into my open Photoshop file. In this case, the vector content is embedded as a smart object and can be edited back in Illustrator. The artwork is a vector smart object that is embedded in the Photoshop file. Like other vector smart objects, you can edit the smart object back in Illustrator, and any changes will be reflected within your Photoshop document for that layer only (see Figure 5). The original Library artwork will not be edited.
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Figure 5 Drag Library content into your design.
If you want to add text formatting to the Library for the project you are working on, you can select the text frame (not the text) in Illustrator or the text layer in Photoshop and click the Add Text Style button at the bottom of the Libraries panel (see Figure 6). The formatting from the first character is sampled and captured as a text style.
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Figure 6 Add text formatting to a Library
Adding other types of content like colors, brushes, and layer styles (Photoshop only) to your Library is pretty easy and something that you can explore to see how it works.