From the course: Photoshop 2021 Essential Training: The Basics

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

From the course: Photoshop 2021 Essential Training: The Basics

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Scaling, skewing, and rotating layers with Free Transform

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- [Instructor] We going to take a few moments and look at all of the different options a Free Transform has to offer. Now this document has two layers, the background and the kitchen layer. I'm going to right click or control click on Mac, and convert the kitchen layer to a smart object, so that the transformations that I make are non destructive. Now I can make as many transformations as I want, and I'll never lose any quality on this layer. All right, I'll select Edit, and then transform. And while I can select any of the individual options, might be easier to just select Free Transform. And you'll notice there's a keyboard shortcut Command + T, or Ctrl + T on Windows. If you can't see the corner transformation handles, you can still use the center handles in order to transform the image, or we can zoom out using the same keyboard shortcut fit on screen. So Command + 0 on Mac or Ctrl + 0 on Windows, will fit the transformation handles on screen when you're in Free Transform. Now by default, when I transform this it is constrained. If I want to unlock that and drag it unconstrained, I can either click the lock icon to unlock it. But for now, I'll leave it locked. Because I prefer to just temporarily turn it off by holding down the Shift key. Now I can go ahead and distort the image. Alright, I'll use Command + Z in order to undo that. And to make this smaller, I'll hold down the Option key on Mac or the Alt key on Windows, and that will transform it from the center. Then I'll use Command + 0 in order to zoom in. Now if I want to reposition a layer, I just need to drag within the transformation handles. To rotate, I can drag outside of the transformation handles. By default Photoshop transforms around the center of the transformation, however, you can modify this by using the reference point. If the reference point isn't showing, just click in order to enable it. And you can change the reference point either by clicking on one of the different anchor points here in the Options bar, or you can drag the reference point in the image area, or you can hold down the Option key and click anywhere to set that as the reference point. Now when I rotate it, it'll rotate around that point. All right, let's go ahead and return that to the center. And if you ever want to remove a rotation, you can just zero out the angle option in the Options bar. Now we can return to the Edit menu and go to transform, and select any of the different options, but it's probably easier to use the context sensitive menus. So on Mac or Ctrl click or just right click and you can select them from the list. If I want to skew this, I'll select one of the middle anchor points. If I want to change the perspective, then I'll choose one of the corner anchor points. And if I want to freely distort it, again, I'll select one of the corners. You also have access to the warp options, the rotate options, and the ability to flip horizontally and vertically. Now at this point, I've sort of made a mess of it. So I'll go ahead and cancel out of here. Now in order to make it easier to see what I'm doing, I'm going to create a mask before I transform this kitchen layer to fit within that mirror. So I'll tap the L key, and I want to select the Polygonal Lasso Tool, because then I just need to click in each one of the corners of this mirror here, and Photoshop will automatically draw a straight line between clicks. When I return to where I started, Photoshop changes the icon to show the little circle, that means I will click and close the path. Now on the Layers panel, I'll make the kitchen layer visible, as well as have it targeted, and then click on the Layer Mask icon. But if I transform the layer now both the mask and the layer itself are going to transform, so I'll click the link icon in between the mask and the layer and then target the contents of the layer. I'll use Command + T on Mac Ctrl + T on Windows to free transform, hold down the Option key on Mac or the Alt key in order to scale this down. And if I needed to skew or change perspective or distort it, I could select that from the list. But for now, I'll just make this a little bit smaller and then reposition it. I'll apply that transformation knowing that if I need to change it at any later time I can without losing any image quality. Now in order to make these blend a little bit better, I'll make two quick changes. The first is I want to select the mask in the Layers panel, and then on the Properties panel, I'll add a very slight feather so there's not a hard edge between the area that I'm seeing of the kitchen and the area that I'm hiding. And finally I'll change the blend mode from normal to overlay in order to have the kitchen photographed blend with a mirror below it, and I'll just decrease the opacity a little bit. So while we were using a photograph in this example, the same transformation techniques will work with any type of layer. So the next time you need to transform a layer non destructively, be sure to convert it into a smart object first, and then make those transformations.

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