From the course: Photoshop 2022 Essential Training

Scaling, skewing, and rotating layers using Free Transform - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop 2022 Essential Training

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Scaling, skewing, and rotating layers using Free Transform

“

- [Instructor] Let's take a few minutes to see all of the different options that the Free Transform feature has to offer. Now, this document has two layers, the background and the kitchen layer. In order to make my transformations non-destructive, I'm going to right-click and convert this kitchen layer to a smart object. Now we can make as many transforms as possible, and never lose any image quality. So from the Edit menu, I can either choose Free Transform, or I can select Transform, and then choose an option from the list. I'm going to select Free Transform, or we can use Command + T on Mac or Control + T on Windows. Now, if you can't see the corner transformation handles, you can still use the center handles in order to transform, or you can zoom out or use the view menu, and choose Fit on Screen. While you're in Free Transform and you select this option, Photoshop will fit the transformation handles on screen. Now by default, the transformation is going to be constrained, but we can unlock that by either clicking the lock icon in the options bar, or we can just temporarily disable it by holding down the Shift key when we drag one of the anchor points. I'll use Command + Z in order to undo that. If I hold down the Option key on Mac or the Alt key on Windows, then we can transform from the center. And if I need to reposition the layer, I can drag with a cursor within the transformation handles. In order to rotate a transformation, I can position my cursor outside of the transformation handles, and just click and drag with a double-headed arrow. Now by default, Photoshop is going to transform around the center of the transformation. However, you can modify that by using the reference point. In the options bar, I'll check to enable the reference point, and then we can move the reference point either by clicking on one of the icons in the options bar, or by dragging the reference point in the image area, or option-clicking to set the reference point. Now we can see as I rotate, it's going to rotate around that point instead of the center. We can also enter in specific values for our transformations in the options bar. In this case I'm going to remove the rotation by just deleting the value. Now in order to select the different transformation options, I can return to the menu and then select them from the list, but I find it easier to use the context sensitive menus, so I can right-click or Control-click on Mac, and then select from any of the various options. We've already seen scale and rotate. If I want to skew the image, then I just need to grab the center point. If I want to change the perspective, I'll grab a corner point and drag. And similarly if I want to distort the image, I'll grab a corner point. You can also use the context sensitive menus in order to access the Warp options, Rotate and Flip. All right, so I've sort of made a mess here, I can either use multiple undo in order to undo the changes, or we could tap cancel or apply it, and then use undo in order to undo all of the transformations in one step. All right, I'm going to hide the kitchen layer for a moment, and I'm going to select the area within the frame. I think the easiest way to do this is using the Polygonal Lasso tool. I'll click in the upper left, then the upper right, click again in the lower right, and in lower left, and then to close the selection, I'll just double-click. Then in the layers panel, we'll make this layer visible and I'll add a mask. But I want to transform the kitchen layer, and if I transform it now, it's going to transform with the mask. So I'll unlink the mask from the layer, make sure that I have the image targeted, use Command + T on Mac or Control + T on Windows, and then start transforming the image. I'll hold the option key in order to transform from the center, and then to change the option I can right-click and select perhaps Distort. Then I'll go ahead and just distort this, so it fits a little bit better within the mask that I've already created. All right, I'll tap Enter or Return in order to apply that transformation. And if I option-click on the mask, we can see that it is a hard edge mask, so I'll use the Feather option in the properties panel in order to just soften that edge. Then in order to blend the photograph with the background, I'll change the blend mode to overlay, and decrease the opacity a little bit. And of course if I ever want to re-edit that transformation, I can do it non-destructively because I've converted the kitchen layer to a smart object. While we were using a photograph in this example, the same transformation options will work on any type of layer. So the next time you need to transform a layer non-destructively, be sure to convert it to a smart object first, and then use Free Transform.

Contents