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Content-Aware Scale and Crop

Lesson 13 from: Photoshop Power Tips and Tricks

Jesús Ramirez

Content-Aware Scale and Crop

Lesson 13 from: Photoshop Power Tips and Tricks

Jesús Ramirez

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Lesson Info

13. Content-Aware Scale and Crop

Next Lesson: Face Swap

Lesson Info

Content-Aware Scale and Crop

This works great, but there's one downside. This is really not creating transparency. If you look at the layer thumbnail, you can still see the original blue sky. We're not really making it transparent, we're just blending layers. And that can be a problem because if we have adjustment layers controlling the layer notice that the sky disappears. See that, how at some point the sky just disappears. Because we're changing the luminance values, we're changing the colors, so if we change the colors we change the blend. So, how can we get transparent pixels out of the blend if? And this is another trick that most people don't know, if you right click and select Convert to Smart Object, look at the thumbnail here, see that no more sky. Now we really have transparent pixels, and just to prove to you that they are transparent, if I hold Control, Command on Mac, and click on that layer thumbnail, look at where it makes the selection, see that? If I undo those changes, notice the blue sky's back...

here on the thumbnail. If I press Control, Command on the Mac, and click on that layer thumbnail. Now look at the selection. See that, not transparent pixels. So when you do a blend if and you want real transparent pixels, you can right click on the layer and select Convert to Smart Object and that will give you transparent pixels. (laughs) Cool. Alright so I have another file here for you guys. And we're gonna be working with content aware. And we're gonna work with content aware scale first. So this is the Sydney Harbor and as you can see there it is. It's actually an image that's longer than the space that I have. So, this happens a lot where social media, where they have, require specific sizes and you take a great photo but it doesn't quite fit whatever dimensions they give you to work with. And what you try to do might be something like pressing Control + T and then scaling the image, and now it fits but it looks squished. There's actually a really cool tool in Photoshop called Content Aware Scale, this one here under the edit menu. Edit. Content Aware Scale. And watch what happens when I scale. It's not really squishing the image, it's removing redundant pixels. Pixels that don't have a lot of detail. In this image all the detail there on the Bay here on this area here. They're collapsing in, so only those blue pixels are really, really collapsing, but I'm not distorting the Opera House really and some of the other areas. So it's a much better way of scaling photos if you don't want em to look squished or stretched out. So See how in the sky, I mean obviously this is an extreme but see how I'm only adjusting the sky and not really the details of the city. So, it's basically, what it's doing is looking at the pixels and trying to figure out what pixels you really don't need and it tries to keep pixels that have details so that you can distort it and not really make the image look squished or stretched out or anything like that. Also, in this example I don't have a person, but if you do have a person, you can protect people by using a channel. This one's pretty much a similar idea. It's called Content Aware Crop. So, we have a photo, if we wanted to add more sky. Again maybe you're working with Pinterest or whatever dimension that you need to be something taller, wider, you can use the Content Aware Crop. So, you can select the crop tool. Right up here on the top right we have this option, Content Aware, see that, Content Aware. Then I can click and drag up and Photoshop will analyze the pixels that were on the edge of the top there. And they will fill based on that selection. So we added a whole lot more sky to that image. So if you needed more negative space to include text, a logo, or something like that, that would be great. If you want to expand it, you can. And I can add more grass too if I want to and I'll show you where it doesn't work. It doesn't work when you have a lotta important detail on the edge there. So, you can see how in this case it won't do that good of a job, but you know for skies, grass, and things like that it does a pretty good job. A lot of you probably noticed the banana there. You can make fun of your friends, tease em, freak em out. Maybe go into the edit tool bar menu, you can hold the Shift key and I'll actually remove it. So to remove it, you'll hold Alt (laughs) and to add it in there you hold Shift. So Shift, click on Done, and it goes into the tool bar.

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Ratings and Reviews

stephen
 

There are but a scant few who really know Photoshop well enough that are able to teach it with a comfortable flow, thoroughness and a pleasant personality. Jesus hits all the marks and I must say, I enjoy... and more importantly, learn more from him than most of the others. It's a pleasure learning from him. Thanks! (I watched 3 times in a row today LOL)

Jennifer
 

Absolutely loved this concise and useful course! This was the first time I’ve heard Jesús teach and I really enjoyed his teaching style. He gets right to the point, no fluff or filler, is easy-going. The tips he teaches in this course are great! I’ve been using photoshop for ten years and I learned something new in each section. Money well spent!! I can hardly wait to check out his other courses!!!

Scott Weishair
 

Amazing! Really cool stuff explained quite well. Loved it!

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