Exercise you want to change the background of a photo in Photoshop? Perhaps you want to plow a cloudy sky into a cute sunny day? Or add together a flat groundwork to your corporate headshot? If so, you'll be pleased to know it'south really quite easy.

Being able to alter the background of a moving picture is i of Adobe Photoshop's best features. The application even includes tools to select tricky areas like hair, and friction match the colors from different images.

How to Change the Background of a Photo in Photoshop

The all-time approach to making a background change in Photoshop is to create a option that separates the foreground and the groundwork.

Every bit with everything in Photoshop, in that location are several unlike ways to exercise achieve the same results. In this tutorial, we'll be using the Quick Selection tool, but it would work just every bit effectively with the Pen tool.

Hither's what we're going to create. We'll start with the photo on the left, and stop with the one on the right.

change background before and after

We're using images from Pexels.com, one of the best royalty-complimentary prototype sites. It's a great place to discover content to practice with. You can download our main paradigm here.

Step 1: Select the Foreground Object

Grab the Quick Selection Tool from the toolbar, or hit West on your keyboard (one of many useful keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop). With a hardish brush, click and drag inside the expanse y'all want to select. Photoshop will try to judge which parts you want to include based on the contrast levels in the image.

select background in photoshop

Equally a issue, you'll discover that areas with loftier dissimilarity and hard edges are selected cleanly, but low dissimilarity and soft edges will require more work.

In some images, you might find it easier to select the groundwork instead. You can then invert the selection past pressing Shift + Ctrl + I on Windows, or Shift + Cmd + I on Mac.

Step 2: Fine-Tune Your Selection

To fine-tune your selection, zoom into the prototype and make your brush size smaller by pressing the left square bracket. Now, go on clicking and dragging to add parts of the foreground object to your selection.

fine tune your selection

If you demand to remove anything from the selection, concord down the Alt central and click and drag in those areas.

Ideally, your selection should comprise all solid objects, simply you don't need to obsess over selecting individual strands of hair, for example. We'll sort that out in a moment.

Step 3: Select and Mask

In the options bar at the acme of the screen, click Select and Mask. The screen that opens enables you to refine the option and convert it into a mask.

select and mask in photoshop

In the Properties panel, click the View Mode option to change how you lot volition come across your selection. Overlay is a good choice, every bit you can option a color that contrasts with your image. But every bit y'all work, you may want to hit the F primal to cycle through the views—different backgrounds volition highlight whatever problems with your selection.

Footstep 4: Refine the Option

Now you tin can brainstorm refining the choice. In the toolbar on the left side of the screen are diverse tools to help you with this:

  • Quick Selection Tool. The same as we used in footstep 1, this tin can exist used to quickly add together (or remove) any larger areas to your choice.
  • Refine Edge Brush Tool. Best used over hair and other soft edges.
  • Brush Tool. Use this over harder edges.
  • Lasso/Polygonal Lasso Tool. Manually draw areas to add or remove from your selection.

Zoom in to your paradigm to check the edges of the selection. You won't need to bear on much of information technology—y'all're mostly looking for areas that either haven't been selected, have been wrongly selected, or take very rough edges.

In our image, nosotros'll start with the Castor tool to smooth the edges of the wall and body. Only paint in to add to the pick, or hold Alt and paint to remove areas.

paint out details

Next, switch to the Refine Edge tool to touch up the hair, or whatever soft edges. Under Border Detection in the right-hand panel, cheque the box marked Smart Radius. This helps Photoshop make a distinction between soft and hard edges.

Also, yous tin increase the Radius a little. You'll need to exercise this by eye to see its effects—printing P to toggle between before and after.

paint in details

Place a softish Refine Border castor on the outer edge of the pilus and brainstorm brushing. Y'all should run across strands of hair starting to be added to the selection. Hold downwardly the Alt key and pigment to undo your changes if you aren't happy with them.

Pace five: Adapt the Settings

The Select and Mask options include several listed under Global Refinements. Nosotros don't need to use them for our image, but for reference they are:

  • Smooth. Smooths the border of a selection, removing whatever jagged lines. Expert for selections with a clear border.
  • Feather. Softens the edge of a option past adding a plume.
  • Contrast. Hardens the edge of a selection by increasing dissimilarity on the edge pixels.
  • Shift Border. Moves your entire selection in or out by a specified number of pixels.

Step half dozen: Remove Colour Fringing

Once you're happy with your choice, get to the Output Settings in the correct-hand console. Tick Decontaminate Colors to remove any color fringe left in your selection.

remove color fringing photoshop

In Output, cull New Layer with Layer Mask, and click OK. You lot will now return to your principal epitome, with your selection added as a new layer. Now that you lot've removed the epitome background, yous're set to add a new background.

Pace 7: Paste Your New Background

Adjacent, paste in the image containing your new background. Place it on a layer simply beneath the layer containing your foreground pick.

paste in new background photoshop

Use the Hand tool to position the layer wherever you lot desire, resizing information technology if necessary using the Gratuitous Transform tool (Ctrl +T or Cmd + T). Catch the handles on the corners or sides of the images and elevate inwards to make information technology smaller. Hold the Shift key to keep the attribute ratio the same.

position and resize background

Pace 8: Match the Colors

By now information technology should be looking pretty good. The terminal footstep is to prepare the colors of the foreground to make sure they blend properly with the groundwork.

Select the foreground layer, making certain to select the paradigm, not the mask. Go to Image > Adjustments > Match Color.

match colors select source

In the window that opens, get to Source and select the prototype y'all're working on. Nether Layer select which layer you want to fix—you lot tin can either match the foreground to your new background, or vice versa.

match colors photoshop

Now cheque the Neutralize box to remove whatever colour casts from your chosen layer, and arrange the Luminance and Intensity options until your foreground and background match. You can reduce the effect using the Fade slider if you need to. Use the Preview option to toggle between the before and subsequently states.

Pace nine: You're Done!

Click OK and you're washed. Salvage your file in the PSD format to preserve all the layer information. With the foreground, groundwork, and original epitome all on separate layers, your file remains fully editable. For more ways to improve your paradigm editing, try these Adobe Photoshop workflow tips.

You can edit the mask to add or remove from what's visible in your foreground, and you can reposition the background or even experiment with different ones entirely.

To share your image you'll need to save it in some other format. Go to File > Relieve As and cull JPEG to do this. Don't delete your PSD, though—that's your backup!

replace background in photoshop

What If You Don't Take Photoshop?

When you desire to change an paradigm groundwork in Photoshop, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Yous can even speedily add together someone to your images or remove blemishes from photos. Simply you can achieve similar things in most other serious graphics packages, too.

In that location are lots of costless alternatives to Photoshop if yous don't want to pay for information technology. Nosotros recommend GIMP as a good starting point, as it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Simply that'southward just 1 of your options.

8 Free Photoshop Alternatives Worth Using Instead

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