Locked lesson.
About this lesson
An incredible tool for content altering. With this tool, you can move objects around, and deform or change existing elements in the image with surprising ease. Quite frankly, you are never going to believe what you see in a photo again…. Sorry about that.
Exercise files
There are no related exercise files for this lesson, or we cannot provide them due to copyright issues.
Quick reference
Topic
Content-Aware Move tool.
When to use
One of incredible tools for content altering. With this tool, you can move objects around, and deform or change existing elements in the image with surprising ease. Quite frankly, you are never going to believe what you see in a photo again…. Sorry about that.
Instructions
Select the Content-Aware Move tool
- This tool can be found in the Tools bar, in the ‘Healing Tools’ section
Option 1 move
- Create a free selection around the object
- Leave a little room around the object
- Drag the selection to its’ new location.
Adaption Options
- Five options tell Photoshop how flexible it can be with its blending
- Very strict down to very loose
Option 1 extend
- Create a free selection around the object and across the section that you want to extend.
- For this type of project you want to choose a very strict adaption type.
- Drag the extension and press Enter.
Tip
Use the other Healing tools to further clean up any lines that occur after the move/extend.
Login to download
- 00:04 Ever since Adobe introduced Content-Aware Scaling in Photoshop CS4,
- 00:08 more and more tools have been benefiting from this incredible technology.
- 00:11 In addition to the Patch tool, which now includes a content-aware option,
- 00:15 Photoshop CS6 also included a brand new tool:
- 00:18 the ‘content-aware Move’ tool. This tool can be found with the other healing
- 00:22 tools in the Tool bar.
- 00:23 Let me show you what it can do. The first option that this tool includes
- 00:27 is ‘move’. I'm sure you can guess what this does, but to demonstrate it,
- 00:30 let's take a look at this image of kangaroos. The kangaroo at the bottom in
- 00:34 this image looks way too lonely over there by himself -
- 00:36 let's move him closer to his friends. Just like the Patch tool, I can create a free
- 00:40 hand selection around the kangaroo,
- 00:42 making sure to outline the whole object. When using the content-aware Move tool you
- 00:45 want to make sure to leave a little bit a room around the edges your object,
- 00:48 to give Phototshop some extra breathing room when it's time to plan your object
- 00:52 with this new background.
- 00:53 Now, on our Options bar, we want to focus on the ‘Adaptation’ options for a moment.
- 00:57 These five options tell Photoshop how flexible it can be with its blending.
- 01:01 Our options range from ‘very strict’ down to ‘very loose’.
- 01:05 Setting our adaptation to ‘very strict’ will give Photoshop very little room to
- 01:09 blend the edges of our object,
- 01:10 while selecting ‘very loose’ will allow for a crop to analyze more of the surrounding
- 01:14 area
- 01:15 and apply that content to the edges of your slighted object.
- 01:18 Because we're dealing with a pretty bland texture, let’s choose ‘very loose’ for
- 01:21 this example.
- 01:22 Once your settings are in place, drag the selection to its new location.
- 01:26 Photoshop will not only move the kangaroo to its new location,
- 01:29 but it will also remove the old one doing its best to keep the result as
- 01:33 natural looking as possible. If you find that the edges didn't blend very well
- 01:36 with the background,
- 01:37 undo and try different adaptation settings.
- 01:41 The second option is ‘extend’. It can be really useful if you're trying to shrink or extend the
- 01:44 length of an object,
- 01:45 such as a building or even an animal. In this image of a lion,
- 01:48 let's say we wanted to increase the size of this guy. With the content-aware Move tool,
- 01:52 I'm able to draw out a selection around the area I want to extend.
- 01:56 Again, when making my selection I want to make sure to leave a little buffer of
- 01:59 breathing room around my subject,
- 02:00 so Photoshop has something to work with when blending. Before I start moving my
- 02:04 selection, I'll set adaptation to ‘loose’ for this example.
- 02:07 That should give me a nice blend - especially on the lion's body.
- 02:10 Now when I drag my selection, I'm going to do my best to line up the crucial lines
- 02:14 on the subject,
- 02:15 but we don't have to be 100% accurate. You'll notice that when I release my
- 02:18 mouse, Photoshop will process, the move 47 00:02:21,170 --> 00:02:25,709 and blend the two sections quite well together. We now have a longer lion,
- 02:25 but he is way too skinny. Let's beef him up.
- 02:29 With the content-aware Move tool still active,
- 02:30 I'm going to draw a selection around the lions midsection, including a little bit
- 02:34 of his legs.
- 02:34 This time for the adaptation, I'm going to set it to ‘strict’ - this will ensure that
- 02:38 the transition
- 02:39 under the lions midsection remains pretty crisp. Dragging the selection down
- 02:43 will add on extra weight to our lion.
- 02:45 Pretty neat! Here's what we started with and here's our end result.
- 02:49 And that's the new content-aware Move tool in Photoshop CS6.
Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.