Easy way to add canvas

Wednesday 17 April 2013

It's happen to all of us, you've taken an image that's almost but not quite worked ...
Why ... ?
The subject is far to close to the edge of the canvas !!

 Test image 
Full Frame in portrait it's to close on the right !!

So there is a few things you can do ...

* Delete it, really easy option *
* Crop it, really tight option *

Adding canvas can be done in many ways and most involve the Clone Tool.

* Add your blank canvas and Clone in *
or
* Duplicate image, cut from one & stick to the other *

Both work but take time ...

.. Try this method ..
Crop ~ Marquee Tool ~ Control J 
Free Transform ~ Add Canvas ~ Flatten
Done

So this is it Step by Step  

This is by far the best way

1 ... Crop

Choose the 'Crop Tool' and set this for unrestricted size.

With the Crop Tool, crop to full size of image, then pull the right-hand side out past the edge to desired size as shown below. 



Hit the 'Enter' key and it will now look like this.




2 ... Marquee Tool

Choose the 'Marquee Tool'



 And in the same way as the crop tool select the area like shown.




3 ... Control - J

Now the quick way is to hit ' Ctrl J ' on the keyboard.
This action will copy & paste to a layer.

If the short-cut ' Ctrl J ' doesn't work put the cursor over the selection and 'Right-click' ..  in the drop-down click .. ' Layer via Copy '
The selection will disappear.


4 ... Control - T

Now hit ' Ctrl T ' on the keyboard.
If the short-cut ' Ctrl T ' doesn't work put the cursor over the selection and 
'Right-click' .. again drop-down click .. ' Free Transform '
The selection will  re-appear again.


5 ... Add Canvas

With the cursor pull the right-hand side and stretch out the canvas as shown !!




6 ... Flatten Image

Hit the ' Enter ' key on the keyboard.
Then from ' Layer ' click and from drop-down click ' Flattem Image '.

There you go job done.
Now crop for composition.






As easy as that 30 second process

It can be used in other ways ...

The dark band at the top of the image !!

Crop



Selection



Add Canvas




Crop for composition

Done







It's a great way to add or even clean up the canvas.

** Remember **

If you find this useful please leave a comment  !!

This would fail in a Photography Competition, but that's not what this is about, it's saving images that were destined for the recycle bin. 

Here's how it handles more complicated backgrounds.
You can only try it may or may not work.





Not to bad ...
Give it a try !!























2 comments:

Ben Porter said...

I have never seen or heard that you can do this. I have certainly found this useful and am sure that I will be able to put it into practice sometime! I guess the only hitch is that you need a nice plain foreground/background/side to be able to copy and paste without visible effects, so a lot of pictures with any sticks or twigs etc. probably would not work?

Mick Southcott said...

I've added a few more complicated backgrounds Ben, see what you think..

Mick ..