How to Place Anything into Perspective in Photoshop

today I'm going to show you how to place anything in perfect perspective into a photo in Photoshop using one of my favorite filters of vanishing point filter hey there and welcome to phlearn my name is Aaron NACE you can find me on phlearn comm where we make learning fun today's episode is super cool basically any time you want to do a mock up or a photo composite where you want to place something let's say on a wall you have to help you like perspective and doing that manually can be a little bit tough but luckily there's a tool built into Photoshop that helps us do this automatically so that's what we're gonna show you how to use in today's episode we got a great tutorial for you let's jump into Photoshop so here are these sample images for today you can actually download these and follow along on phlearn calm just follow the link right down below we're including the PSD as well so let's go ahead and jump in our first image here basically I want to take this print that says you are a greatest adventure oh how sweet and first thing you just need to straighten this out a little bit so let's grab our marquee tool I'm just gonna make a little bit of a larger selection that I need and hit ctrl or command J and we're gonna put that basically on its own layer and you're gonna see it has a little bit of a shadow with it already okay now on its own layer we're just gonna go ahead and move this into our new frame so let's just click and drag boom and here it is in our new image and you can see it's not in perspective so it doesn't look real now let's go ahead and take a look at some of the light in our background image because we need that to match so the light direction in the background photo is coming from this way and we can see that on this pot for instance like there's a highlight on this side and a shadow on this side so that tells us the lights coming from that direction now the light on this image is coming from this direction you can see the highlight here on the picture frame and a little bit of a shadow right over here so we need to flip this image only issue is the fact that the center of our photograph we don't want to flip that right because it's you know the text would be backwards if we hit controller command t flip this horizontal you know rule your eye urs disagrees that doesn't work so what we're gonna do is separate this out okay so I'm gonna go ahead and make a marquee selection right here around this area boom and hit controller command J that's gonna put this on a new layer so we just have this and then my background will hit ctrl or command T and then right click and flip that horizontally boom did you see that so let's hit undo and then redo again okay so we just flipped the frame and then of course this layer you know flip the art as well but we copied the art onto a new layer so we should be good to go now I do want to straighten this out I'm gonna hit controller command R which brings up my rulers and you can click and drag from the top down your rulers there and this is gonna bring in guides so let's just drag from the left to the right now there we go and you can see we have some guides because I want this to be you know not slanted a little bit so let's hit ctrl or command T so here are the guides basically telling us like this is you know now we have a goal right this is pretty you know accurate with this corner of the frame here you can see we're a little bit too low and here we can see let's go ahead and get one of these here as well boom so you can see this is not perpendicular so we just need to make it perpendicular now it's actually really easy to do just hit ctrl or command T for your transform and then I can just hold ctrl and click on these little corners there Boop and we're just gonna move this one up OOP and if you say Boop it works a lot better every go Boop and hit Enter there we go and now we can see the picture frame is a lot more squared in the actual photo so it's just a super simple skew now I want to do the same thing with this there we are just so everything is nice and square because we're going to wind up cutting this frame out from the crowd okay let's go ahead and zoom in there and now we're gonna do the same thing with our prints so ctrl or command T there we are I'm just gonna bring this in each one of these corners until it aligns perfectly with my little grid oh I don't have a grid on the bottom here so let's go ahead and make one there we are couldn't be easier and hit enter when you're done so there we go everything is on a grid now I'm just gonna go to view and then I'm gonna go down to clear guides those blue guides I don't need them anymore so we're just gonna clear them out now in this case we could most definitely try to use some of the shadow from the picture frame but what I would rather do is just generate our shadow with layer effects so let's go ahead and take these two layers and we're just going to merge them back together again so now the light is coming from the correct direction here so let's see if controller command e to merge them together and now we grab our marquee tool there we go go up to the top corner and down there and we just want to make sure we're in about the right location doesn't have to be perfect so we're just using a layer mask but we want it to be pretty good okay so now that we have that selection let's just click on our layer mask and I think this looks pretty pretty good so we are ready for our vanishing point filter so this layer looks good obviously just not in perspective now I'm gonna go ahead and apply this layer mask let's just right click and go to apply layer mask okay now this layer here basically what I need to do is get the contents of this layer on my clipboard okay like anytime you copy and paste that's putting something on your clipboard so super easy just hold ctrl or command and click on the layer itself and that just turns the layer into a selection so now you can see I've got a selection around my photo frame and just go a controller command C so just copy you can just go to edit and down to copy also so that's on my clipboard now and we can just make it invisible and deselect what's the word so it's in our clipboard and that's all it needs for our vanishing point filter now what we're gonna do is create a new layer this is important you don't want to use your background layer you want to do a new layer here okay so we've made a selection out of this layer copied it it's on our clipboard and I made a new layer and now it's time to paste it but I'm not just gonna go paste it onto this new layer which I could just hit ctrl or command V and then pop now it's on that layer I don't want to do that just yet because we're gonna do our vanishing point filter so let's show you how to do it it's actually super cool I've used this for so many things compositing getting people in the right perspective it's awesome so we're gonna go to filter and we're gonna go to vanishing point this is one of those ones that like I don't know for the longest time I never even used in Photoshop but it's really cool so let's go ahead and click basically we want to click on some visual cues here on our image right we want to create perspective so this is just gonna go straight up and down pretty much there we go come across there and then come back down to there boom and it's gonna build you a perspective grid and if it's not perfect you can simply just click here and move this around let's just move this one around there that looks pretty good you would basically just want the sides to be straight up and down and then this we're trying to follow you know follow the actual line there so we have our grid in there how do we get the picture frame into this grid well all you have to do is paste it in remember earlier we hit ctrl or command C for copy now we just have to hit ctrl or command V for paste so here we go ctrl or command V boom paste now it just puts it up there but if you click and drag it into this frame look at that if I put it out there it's automatically now in perspective so once it goes in this frame it automatically goes into the right perspective and you can still transform it so I hit ctrl or command T I can now transform because it skewed perspective a little bit just if this isn't a perfect square here it's gonna skew your perspective so you just need to stretch it back down a little bit but check this out now what and can you see how it gets bigger it's bigger over here and it gets smaller as we go down there so anywhere I put this it's basically going to be perfectly aligned with the wall because it uses this vanishing point filter to get it there which is so so cool all right there we go let's just put it right about here maybe make it a little bit smaller you are our greatest adventure I agree that looks really cool so the vanishing point filter basically you just draw your perspective and then hit paste and it pops it in there automatically in the right perspective it's so cool so let's go ahead and hit OK and then now this is just on this new layer and perfectly in perspective but it doesn't look real just yet and there are a couple reasons why one is that my light levels don't really make sense with the image and two we don't have a shadow so let's take care of our light levels first a great way to do this is I'm just gonna grab my adjustment layers and go to black and white boom okay now when you make a black and white layer this isn't gonna be on here for permanent for permanent it's just here so I can look at the relative light levels my image and right now it might be obvious but the white area of my photo frame is way too bright right it's like ooh that doesn't look right so what we need to do is we need to make a levels or a curves adjustment layer but we're gonna use levels okay so levels now here's the deal if I adjust my levels right now it's gonna do it on my whole image okay but if I clip this to the picture frame using this little clipping mask icon right there or you can right click where's my little right click at there you are go to right click and go to create clipping mask same thing so this little button here you can see it pushes it over the side and you get a little down arrow that is the same thing as right-clicking and go to create clipping mask you can also hit option command G okay always five ways to do things in Photoshop so let's go ahead and reset this now what we want to do is make the white area less bright okay so I need to take my whites and make them darker and that's just right here this little slider right here boom look at this I just make my white area less bright and and right about there that looks way better I'm gonna take my blacks and make them a little bit less black less dark as well okay did match our image so look at that that's a pretty big change already it's like okay we're kind of getting there it still kind of looks two-dimensional but it looks a heck of a lot better than it did the next thing that I want to do just for like fun sake because it's gonna be fun is I want to try to create a little bit of his perspective behind I'm gonna create like the side of this picture frame so here's how we're going to do this I'm gonna create a new layer under my picture frame there we go and we're just gonna basically make a selection out of our picture frame okay so the picture frame is selected again just hold ctrl or command click on the picture frame and then I'm gonna hit him for my marquee tool okay and we're just gonna go up like this just a little bit okay give it some thickness and then I'm gonna hit B for my brush tool and we're just gonna grab this color there we go and I'm gonna hit ctrl or command H so I can see what I'm doing a little bit better I did not mean to drag that out there we go and we're just gonna paint this in it's gonna give us a little bit more thickness here there we go something like that now I know it's not perfect just now so we need to zoom in here there we go and I'm gonna hit L for my lasso tool I'm gonna hold down alt or option and then just connect these up boop-boop-boop look at that we have thickness houston we have thickness that's not a thing here we go and connect this up down there and I guess we need to add that to it too all right and then B for the brush we'll just paint this in this is looking awesome I know that doesn't match right now but we'll just lock the transparency this oh that's not working just make it into a selection then paint it all right we need to do the same thing down there as well and then this is should be a little bit darker right so we're gonna hit controller command L for our levels boom and we'll just make this a little bit darker source being our blacks up cool so we have a little bit of thickness there alright maybe should be a little bit thicker but I think that looks pretty good so now we're looking a lot more like hey that's in perspective right fantastic I think this should be a little bit more slanty so I'm just gonna grab my lasso tool boom and do something like that and then put that as a layer mask and then invert it that's just gonna change that perspective a little bit cool that looks better so now what we need to do is I need it add a shadow to this right because it doesn't really look that good I'm just gonna adjust my light levels too cuz it's a little bit too dark there we go that looks much more real look at that added thickness to a photo frame okay so it doesn't look that real basically because there's no shadow so there's a lot of ways you can do this but I'm just gonna group all these layers together and then guess what you can make FX the color effects like drop shadows and stuff you can do that on a whole group so that's what we're gonna do so I'm gonna go in here and we're gonna just add a drop shadow first thing we need to do is work on our angle so the angle of the shadow we want to be you know I'm gonna look at this clock for reference okay so angle yeah right about there looks pretty good okay now let's go ahead and add some distance to it there we go and we're gonna add some size to it too there we are now let's continue to add some more distance there we go not that much and we're gonna want to just go a little bit less with the size because it's not that far off the wall right like if you do this it makes it look like it's further off the wall cool now this doesn't look real just yet for a couple of reasons one is anytime you do shadow work in Photoshop you need more than one layer it just never looks good with just one layer the second reason is the color of the shadow doesn't match my image at all right so we need to click on our color here you just go with our little eyedropper okay and I'm going to choose the color boom right there right and with that color right there cool so now we at least have the right color now what we're gonna do is take down the opacity of this shadow here there we go and bring up the size just a little bit okay and then that makes up our first shadow so we need a second shadow in here at least two to give it a little bit of like local let's look at this shadow here you see how there's a shadow right where the clock meets the wall that's like dark and relatively well defined and then you have this bigger one out here you need at least a couple shadows surprisingly right you think you do with one but it never looks real so we just click this little plus icon boom I'm going to just change my distance and change my size there we go and we're gonna bring up our opacity a little bit and now we have a shadow okay that's right next to our picture frame so our first shadow there we go like the big one and then we have the small one right next to it so you can see each one of these if I just had that not realistic okay if I just have that not realistic but once we add a couple of these it's looking a lot more realistic right let's go ahead and bring our size up a little bit more we're gonna bring up our distance a little bit more and then we're gonna bring our opacity down look at that so three shadows right three drop shadows it's not hard to do you just click that little plus icon but basically you want one that's like right beside the picture frame or whatever you're trying to if you want to composite a person on a floor do this as well so one right beside it okay that's like relatively thin well-defined and darker then you do a medium one and then you do a bigger one and that should get less visible and more spread II it's not a word it should get more feathered out as it gets farther away farther away so each one of these shadows adds depth and realism to our image boom check that out and I did that to the entire group so I can go in here and I can still change all the settings this is come nondestructive I can turn any of these shadows off and on right here in this dialogue and we are good to go not to mention I can just move this around now right I mean it looks pretty dang good but I got one more step that I want to do you see this dark shadow for the plant I want to integrate that into this picture a little bit more so what we're gonna do is I'm gonna create a new layer hit B for the brush tool and we're just gonna sample this color I'm gonna paint over the picture frame just a little bit like that okay Oh such an artist now I want this to only be visible where this picture frame is visible so what I'm gonna do is clip this shadow to the picture frame just right click and go to clipping now create a clipping mask now earlier we used a clipping mask here I'll show you remember this clipping mask it's a levels adjustment layer that we clipped to the photo frame okay check this out I'm clipping this layer okay unclip clip you can see how it becomes only visible where the shadow is I'm clipping this to an entire group who knew you could clip a layer to an entire group and you can apply layer effects on an entire group it's awesome so now this is only visible where my picture frame is super cool we just changed our layer blend mode from normal to multiply which just makes it darker so it's not gonna get any lighter okay then I add a little Gaussian blur cuz it doesn't look good at all so Gaussian blur it up there we go something right about there and then I just lower the opacity of this a little bit until it you know it gets subtle but now it looks like we have some interaction between the plant and that picture frame and then BOOM that's a realistic composite I look at this picture and I don't think they added that you know what I mean and look this I can still move this around and that shadow stays in the same place because the shadow is on a new layer clip to it so I can just move this around put a where I want you can see how the shadow comes in and out of that display I can move this around put it exactly where I want and we are good to go and again I can turn off my layer effects at any time completely non-destructive workflow now this layer here we don't need it anymore delete it in the black-and-white layer we don't need that anymore either so we've got a really really great composite with a lot of help from our friend the vanishing point filter as well as clipping masks and levels adjustment layer I'm going to be including not only this image but also this PSD available for free download on phlearn comm so if you want to tear this apart and see how it was done and recreated you know or do your own type of compositing this should help you out so just follow the link right down below and you can get access to that thank you so much for watching I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial if you guys are just getting started and want to learn a lot more Photoshop things like compositing retouching special effects Lightroom photography I mean just a crazy amount of stuff check out Florin pro we have an entire catalogue with thousands of hours of wonderful tutorials that are gonna help you out it's a subscription so you just basically hit subscribe and you get access to everything we've ever done it's totally awesome thank you so much for watching i'll phlearn you later bye everyone

Channel: PHLEARN

Views: 441,810

Rating: 4.9458499 out of 5

Keywords: Phlearn, Photography, Aaron Nace, Photoshop, Adobe, Tutorial, Help, Tips, How-to, Education, Adobe Photoshop, Class, Course, Learn Photoshop, prespective photoshop, perspective photoshop tutorial, perspective photoshop architecture, perspective photoshop tool, perspective photoshop grid, phlearn photoshop tutorials, perspective photoshop cc, perspective photoshop 2020, perspective photoshop text, prespective photoshop architecture, prespective photoshop tool, prespective photoshop grid

Id: 7MM2_oVDi_o

Length: 21min 13sec (1273 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2020