Lesson 13- Adding Custom Art and Backgrounds
In this free tutorial, we will focus on adding backgrounds behind doors and window frames. I will also cover how to add art to frames. The same principle can be applied to adding art to canvas or anything else you want to customize and conform to a given shape. We will be using The Design Board Kit for this example, however, you can still follow along without it if you’d like.
For this example, we will be using a room set up in The Design Board Kit. Inside of it, there is an entire room set up that can be manipulated easily.
- Adding a background behind a sliding glass door.
Step 1
To get started I will open the living room kit and go to the back wall group. Inside the group, I will double-click on the “bg wall” smart object. To learn more about smart object check out lessons 2 and 3 located in the Tutorial Library.
Step 2
Inside the background layer, I’ll begin by opening the groups and finding layers that the background image will be placed behind. In this case, it’s the door and window frames.
Step 3
Then I can drag the image from the internet browser or desktop folder directly into the Photoshop document. I will place it just above the “replace background layer”. If you make your own “background layer, just use the marquee tool to generate any shape you want.
Step 4
To apply the background image just hover between the artwork and the “replace background layer” while holding ALT and you will see a small icon with an arrow appear. this is called a Clipping Mask.
Step 5 Once the clipping mask is applied you should see the background or artwork conform to the “replace background layer” underneath it.
Do the same steps above for window frames or any other area you want to apply a background too.
You can follow the exact same steps from above to apply artwork behind frames or onto the canvas.
Step 1.
Simply drag the artwork into Photoshop from the internet browser or desktop folder and drop it above the background layer. In this example, we are replacing “layer 1” with “layer 2”.
Step 2.
After bringing the painting in just scale it down to fit how you want it in the frame. Then just as we did above hover between the background layer and the artwork and clip the artwork to the background layer.
Step 3.
After applying each piece of art or background to your smart object layers hit CMND S to save the smart object and it will update your master file. you can hit CTRL-Tab to toggle between open Photoshop documents.
Conclusion
Thanks for learning with us. if you have any questions, would like more information on anything please don’t hesitate to send us an email at brian at the design cure.com