From the course: Cert Prep: Adobe Certified Associate - Photoshop (2019)

Transforming graphical elements - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Cert Prep: Adobe Certified Associate - Photoshop (2019)

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Transforming graphical elements

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- [Instructor] In this movie we'll take a look at what you need to know about transforming content in Photoshop. In our exercise file, we have this colorful fellow duplicated six times, each on its own separate layer. And each of those layers represents a kind of transformation that you can apply in Photoshop. They match the commands that you'll find in the Edit Menu under Transform. So we have Scale, Rotate, Skew, Distort, Perspective and Warp. And below these layers we have a Background Layer. Note that you can't apply transformations to a Background Layer. If I select it in the Layers Panel, and try to go to that Transform command, it's grayed out. But if I click on the lock icon, to make the Background Layer into a regular Layer, now the Transform commands are available. So, let's apply some transformations. And first, to make things go a little smoother, I'll go to the View Menu and turn off Snap. That way the content is not snapping to any Smart Guides as we transform it. Then I'll select the top layer called Scale and apply it from the Edit Menu. So Edit, Transform, Scale. Note that you can select multiple layers and transform them at the same time, but in this movie we're just going to do them one at a time. Now, notice the controls in the options bar. First on the left, we have the reference point which can be turned on or off. Transformations will happen around this point, and you can click to choose different points here in the proxy, or click and drag the control that appears on the content that you're transforming. We also have controls for applying precise transformations in terms of width and height for scaling, angle for rotating and for skewing horizontally and vertically. If I want to constrain proportions, I can click the chain icon to maintain the aspect ratio. And for example, I could set the reference point to the bottom right, and enter a width value of 50%, and our chameleon is scaled down to 50%. Now at this point, I'm not yet finished with the transformation. I need to press Return or Enter, or click the check mark in the options bar. Or I can abandon the transformation by pressing Escape, or clicking the no symbol here. Or I can also press Command or Control + Z to reset the chameleon to his original size and try again. This time I'll drag one of the handles on the canvas. And notice when I did that, Photoshop ignored the proxy reference point that I chose. In effect, I chose a different reference point by dragging the top right handle. You should also understand the purpose of the Interpolation pop-up menu in the options bar. This is where you choose the method for Photoshop to resample the pixels that you're transforming. And it will affect the look of new pixels. The default is Bicubic Automatic and it will give you good results in most cases. But there are times when you might want to choose a different method. Like Nearest Neighbor when you're working with screenshots and solid color graphics. I'm going to leave it on Bicubic Automatic, and click the check mark to apply the Scale transformation. Then I'll select the Rotate Layer, and go to the Edit Menu, Transform, and you can see here that there are some additional rotation commands. Like Rotate 180 degrees, 90 degrees and Flip Horizontal and Vertical. I can also simply choose Free Transform, or press Command or Control + T, which I'll do. And then, move my cursor just outside any of the handles that appear until I see this bent arrow. And then click and drag. The rotation angle appears at my cursor and in the options bar. And holding the Shift key constrains to 15 degree increments. So I'll rotate this guy 90 degrees and click the check mark. Select the Skew Layer, and choose it, and drag a side. And you can see the image gets skewed. I'll apply that Skew, and move on to the Distort Layer. Now if I drag the bottom center handle, I can Skew and Scale at the same time. If I press Command or Control + Z, to reset the layer, I can drag a corner and get different distortion effects. I'll accept that, and let's go to the Perspective Layer and try Perspective. I'll drag a corner, and I can apply either Horizontal or a Vertical Perspective. And lastly, let's select the Warp Layer, and press Command or Control + T to enter a Free Transform, and then click the button in the options bar to switch to Warp Mode. This gives us access to the Warp Menu in the options bar, and we can select things like Bulge, and then drag the control handles to adjust the effect. Or pick a different Warp effect like Flag. One final note, in addition to layers and selections you can also transform things like Masks, Paths and Vector Shapes. So in this movie we looked at transforming content in Photoshop using both the specific commands in the Edit Menu, as well as the Free Transform command and choices in the options bar like those for Warp.

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