How to Stretch Images using Content Aware Scale

▶ Download the practice files for this tutorial (free with a PHLEARN account): phlearn.com/tutorial/how-to-stretch-images-usin…

Learn how to use Content-Aware Scale in Photoshop to widen or heighten a photo's empty space without stretching the important parts of the image.

This tutorial compares Content-Aware Scale against regular Free Transform and a lasso-selection workaround, showing why neither of those stretches an image cleanly. Then it covers how to protect a specific subject from being distorted using an alpha channel selection.

CHAPTERS
00:00 What Content-Aware Scale is for
00:59 Extending the canvas with the Crop tool
01:42 Why regular Free Transform stretches your subject
02:20 Why a lasso selection alone doesn't work either
03:04 Using Content-Aware Scale for the first time
04:16 Protecting a subject with an alpha channel selection
06:03 Content-Aware Scale with Protect applied
07:04 Before and after

THE STEPS
1. Extend your canvas boundaries with the Crop tool
2. Duplicate your background layer
3. Go to Edit, then Content-Aware Scale, and stretch the empty areas
4. To protect a subject, select everything except it, then invert the selection
5. Load that selection as a new alpha channel and fill it with white
6. Run Content-Aware Scale again, then choose your alpha channel under Protect
7. Stretch the image again, this time leaving your subject untouched
8. For a large stretch, scale halfway, confirm, then scale again

Read PHLEARN's full walkthrough of Content-Aware Scale, then try it on your own images: phlearn.com/tutorial/how-to-stretch-images-usin…

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