Today, I'm going to show you a few simple and effective ways to extend background in Photoshop. Before we start, I would like to recommend a product from Envato Elements, which can help you to extend a background in Photoshop a few simple clicks:
Image Extend: Clipping & Expansion Kit (ZXP)
Image Extend is an addon which will help you to make your images larger by extending their edges. It will keep the quality of your image and help you to avoid any blurred areas, because this addon creates new pixel data and fills the areas base on the existing contents. This panel will be really handy if you need to extend a background in Photoshop for a series of images.
Tutorial Assets
Before we start learning how to extend background in Photoshop, I want to show you which assets were used during the production of the tutorial:
- Close Up Portrait
- Mount Agung Volcano at Sunrise
- Traditional Norwegian Old Wooden Houses with Growing Grass on Roof
What You'll Learn in This Photoshop Tutorial
- How to extend an image with a solid background in Photoshop
- How to extend an image in Photoshop using the Content-Aware Scale option
- How to extend a background in Photoshop with the Image Extend addon
Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube Channel:
1. How to Extend an Image With a Solid Background in Photoshop
Step 1
Let's start by opening our first image. Hit Control-O and select the picture.
Step 2
To extend the background of an image with a solid background in Photoshop, all you need to do is hit Alt-Control-C and change the Weight to 8500 px, and then change the Canvas Extension Color to the color of your background using the Color Picker Tool.
Here's how our image should look now:
Step 3
If you have lines where the colors don't match, you can fix them with the Spot Healing Brush Tool (J). Just paint over these lines with this tool.
2. How to Extend an Image in Photoshop Using the Content-Aware Scale Option
Step 1
Let's try another method. Open your image and Double-Click on the Background layer to rasterize the layer.
Step 2
Then hit C to activate the Crop Tool.
Step 3
Drag the lines of the crop tool to extend the background as you need.
Step 4
Now press Alt-Shift-Control-C to activate the Content-Aware Scale tool. Hold Shift and drag the lines to extend the background of the Photoshop image.
This is how your image will look:
Step 5
Content Aware Scale is a great tool when you're working with landscape images, as it's okay if some natural elements such as water, grass, and bushes get stretched or squashed a bit, but I don't recommend using this method with portraits, as this can affect the facial proportions and give you results like this one:
3. How to Extend a Background in Photoshop With the Image Extend Addon
Step 1
The previous technique can make some areas of your image look blurry, and you can lose the quality of your image. To avoid this, let's try the Image Extend addon. Open the image you want to use, and then go to Window > Extensions > Image Extend to open the addon.
Step 2
Here you can choose which side of the background you want to extend and how many pixels you want to add. Let's put a tick on Content-Aware and then set all the sides to 200 px.
Step 3
After that, just hit Extend and wait a little.
Awesome Work, You're Now Done!
Here is our final result! Using these simple methods, you can extend the background of almost any image. Don't forget to try the Image Extend addon as this is a really handy tool with great options and good results.
If you want to learn more Photoshop tips and tricks, check out these amazing tutorials:
