How To Use CONTENT-AWARE SCALE in Photoshop - ADVANCED Methods Video Lecture | Mastering Adobe Photoshop CC 2017: Step by Step Tutorials - Design

Welcome back to another very exciting tutorial
here at the PhotoshopTrainingChannel.com.
My name is Jesus Ramirez and you can find
me on Instagram @JRfromPTC.
In this video, you will learn how to use Photoshop’s
Content-Aware Scale.
This video is going to be part of my Content-Aware
series on my YouTube channel.
I already have several other videos on how
to use the Content-Aware technology.
They’re grouped together in a YouTube playlist.
There’s a link to it down below in the description.
But anyway, in this video we’re going to
focus solely on the Content-Aware Scale which
allows you to resize an image without changing
important visual content such as people, buildings,
and other important items in the image.
Normal scaling affects all pixels uniformly,
while Content-Aware Scale affects mostly pixels
in areas that don’t have important visual
content.
In this tutorial, I’m going to show you
two examples of how to use the Content-Aware
Scale.
We’ll use a photograph, and I’ll also
show you one of the techniques that I use
when creating screenshots of user interfaces.
Okay, let’s get started.
So we’re going to work with this image of
the Sydney harbour.
So we have the Sydney Opera House.
And if you notice, this image is quite wide.
It is actually wider than the canvas, as you
can see there.
And sometimes you maybe working with images
that you may need to fit in a required space.
It maybe a constriction based on the blog
post that you’re creating.
Maybe it’s a social media profile or it
could even be a magazine layout or anything
of the sort.
The point is, is that you’re trying to fit
an image into a predefined area or aspect
ratio.
In this case, these layers are way too wide
for the space that we have.
You can, of course, press Ctrl T/ Command
T to transform and scale the image in.
But if you do that you will of course, stretch
the pixels and you will distort buildings.
I’m going to press the escape key to cancel
that and, obviously, that is not the best
way to do it.
But in Photoshop we can use the Content-Aware
Scale to help us with this problem.
So I’m going to go into Edit-Content-Aware
Scale or you can use the keyboard shortcut
Alt+ Shift+ Ctrl C, that’s Option + Shift/Command
C on the Mac.
And watch what happens when I scale now.
I’m going to click and drag from the left,
and notice how I’m not really distorting
the image.
Instead, Photoshop is collapsing the pixels
that don’t have important content.
So we did not distort the Sydney Opera House
or a lot of the buildings here on the left
hand side.
When you’re done, you can just press the
check mark.
And now this image fits then the predefined
space.
I’m going to press Ctrl+ Alt+ Z/ Command
Option Z on the Mac to undo.
And I’m going to show you a couple of the
features that this tool has.
So I’m going to go back into Edit- Content-Aware
Scale and notice the Options bar, we got a
few options.
First, on the left-hand side, we have the
reference point.
Notice currently that middle box is selected,
that means that the reference point is right
in the center.
That’s default.
This is where the image is going to scale
from once we start clicking and dragging on
the handles.
I can click on these boxes and notice that
the point moves.
Now the point is here, in the center on the
right.
And I can scale and it’s scaling from that
point.
Another important setting in the Options bar
is the Amount, currently it’s set to 100
and that should be default.
This is the ratio between Content-Aware Scale
in regular scale.
At 100% you’re doing all Content-Aware Scale
but if I bring that back to 0, notice how
the image will change.
It reverts back to regular scaling.
And, of course, 49% will be about 50-50.
So you’re doing half regular scale, half
Content-Aware.
In most cases though, a 100% Content-Aware
Scale is what you need.
You can also protect skin tones by clicking
on this icon here.
We don’t have any skin tones in this image
so we don’t need to worry about.
But if you’re working with a portrait, you
may want to click on this icon to protect
the person in the portrait.
There’s also this Protect dropdown menu
and it allows you to protect pixels in the
image.
And I’m going to show you how that works.
I’m just going to tap on this cancel button
to cancel that Content-Aware and I’m just
going to move this over to the right and I’m
going to show you how to protect the pixels
on the left-hand side here.
So, what you need to do is make the selection
using the Lasso tool – it doesn’t have
to be very precise - around the areas that
you want to protect.
Also notice that I have a Feather of almost
10 pixels, that’s okay.
That just means that it’s not going to be
a sharp selection.
There’s going to be some blurriness to it.
Then I’m going to go into the Channels panel,
create a New Channel and fill it with white
Alpha 1.
White is my background color.
I can press Ctrl + Backspace/Command Backspace
on the Mac.
So now anything that is white will be protected
and anything that is black can be adjusted
with the Content-Aware Scale.
I’m going to press Ctrl D/ Command D to
deselect.
Click on RGB and go back into my Layers panel.
And if I go into Edit-Content-Aware Scale,
under Protect, choose Alpha 1 because that’s
the name of the channel that we created.
We can scale that in and notice how the pixels
in the white will be protected.
Notice how none of those pixels are changing,
then you can click on the check mark and the
scale is complete.
Now I’m going to show you how I use this
feature for something completely different.
Some of you may know I do writing for magazines
and blogs regarding Photoshop, of course.
And when writing these articles I often have
to take screenshots of the user interface
and those screenshots need to fit within specific
spaces.
So, I have this screenshot of the Layers panel
in Photoshop and this white space will represent
the area that needs to fit in.
So usually what I would do in the past would
be to figure out the space that I needed,
so now I know it’s that space there and,
obviously, it’s too tall.
So I would make a selection, hit the delete
key, make a selection again and move that
up and try to fit it within that space.
As you see, this is very time consuming and
it’s not very efficient.
I’m going to press Ctrl+ Alt Z/ Command
Option Z on the Mac to undo.
But we can take advantage of that same Content-Aware
technology and use it to solve this problem.
So what you can do is take your new eye element,
figure out how big it needs to be and then
go to Edit-Content-Aware Scale and you can
scale that in and notice how Photoshop knew
exactly what pixels were irrelevant and it
kept all the pixels that contain the detail.
So this is a technique that I use that helps
me speed up the process of creating screenshots
for the articles that I write.
Let me know if you come up with any other
interesting ways of using the Content-Aware
Scale.
Leave a comment down below.
Don’t forget to watch the other videos in
this Content-Aware series on my YouTube channel.
Once again, the link to the playlist is right
below in the description.
If this is your first time at the Photoshop
Training channel, don’t forget to subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching and I’ll
talk to you again soon.