How to Use Content‐Aware Scale in Photoshop

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Two Methods:Scaling an Image UpScaling an Image DownCommunity Q&A

Content-Aware Scale resizes an image without changing important details such as people, buildings, or animals. While normal scaling (transforming) affects all pixels uniformly when resizing an image, content-aware scaling mostly affects pixels in areas that don’t have important visual content. Content-Aware Scale lets you up-scale or down-scale images to improve a composition, fit a layout, or change the orientation. If you want to use some normal scaling when resizing your image, there is an option for specifying a ratio of content-aware scaling to normal scaling. You can use these techniques to transform a landscape image to portrait and a portrait to landscape.

Steps

Method 1

Scaling an Image Up

1. 1

   Open Photoshop and your image (Ctrl+Oor⌘ Command+O).

2. 2

   Make a duplicate of the background by pressing Ctrl+J in Windows and ⌘ Command+J in Mac. Content-Aware Scale does not work on a background image, so a copy has to be made.

3. 3

   Make the canvas big by cropping it up.

   Content-Aware Scale will make the image large, so a large canvas is required.

   • Press C for the Crop Tool.

4. 4

   Go to Edit → Content-Aware Scale.

   Click on Content-Aware Scale.

   • The 4 corners of the image will change to points.

5. 5

   Drag one of the corners "outside" as you click one of the points. You can also press Alt, while dragging, on the keyboard to maintain the ratio of both the sides of the image.

6. 6

   Press ↵ Enter or the "Right sign" when done.

7. 7

   Use this technique to transform any portrait image to a landscape image.

Method 2

Scaling an Image Down

1. 1

   Open Photoshop and an image (Ctrl+Oor⌘ Command+O).

2. 2

   Make a duplicate of the background by pressing Ctrl+J in Windows and ⌘ Command+J in Mac. Content-Aware Scale does not work on a background image, so a copy has to be made.

3. 3

   Go to Edit → Content-Aware Scale.

   Click on Content-Aware Scale.

   • The 4 corners of the image will change to points.

4. 4

   Drag one of the corners "inside" as you click one of the points.

   You can also press

   Alt

   , while dragging, on the keyboard to maintain the ratio of both the sides of the image.

   • For this image, pressing Alt is not necessary.

5. 5

   Press ↵ Enter or the "Right sign" when done.

6. 6

   Crop the image.

   After you have made it small, the background image can be seen, so you have to crop it.

7. 7

   Use this technique to transform any landscape image to a portrait image.

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Tips

• You can also select the area using the selection tools and then use the Content-Aware Scale inside the selection to stretch it out.
• You can press Alt, while dragging, on the keyboard to maintain the ratio of both the sides of the image.
• You can also (Content-Aware)scale the image vertically(upwards or downwards).
• Click on the Protect skin tone icon when there are persons in the image, located just beside the "Right sign".
• Add a blur and then add a Layer Mask where it looks bad.

Warnings

• Content-Aware Scale does not work limitlessly, but it does work very well. Just don't go too far with it, or it will will look bad.

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