How to Extend a Background in Photoshop

Today, I’m going to show you a few simple and effective ways to learn how to extend a background in Photoshop. By following these steps, you’ll be able to use Photoshop to extend the background of a photo and get the creative results you want.

If you like videos, here’s a quick video tutorial from the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel to learn how to expand a background in Photoshop:

What You’ll Need to Extend a Photo Background

Before we start learning how to extend a background in Photoshop, here are the assets that were used during the production of the tutorial:

• Close Up Portrait and this picture of a young model with ice cream
• Mount Agung Volcano at Sunrise
• Traditional Norwegian Old Wooden Houses with Growing Grass on Roof

What You’ll Learn in This Photoshop Tutorial

• How to expand the image background in Photoshop with a solid color
• How to expand the background of an image in Photoshop using the Content-Aware Scale option
• How to extend a background in Photoshop with the Image Extend add-on

1. How to Expand the Image Background in Photoshop with a Solid Color

Step 1

Let’s start learning to extend a picture background by opening our first image. Hit Control-O and select the picture.

Step 2

To extend the background of an image in Photoshop with a solid background, all you need to do is hit Alt-Control-C and change the Height to 3000 px, and then change the Canvas Extension Color to the color of your background using the Color Picker Tool.

Here’s how our image should look after going through the first couple of steps to expand a photo background with a solid color:

Step 3

If you have lines where the colors don’t match, you can fix them with the Spot Healing Brush Tool (J). Just paint over these lines with this tool to produce the result you want and expand the image background in Photoshop.

2. How to Expand the Background of an Image in Photoshop Using the Content-Aware Scale Option

Step 1

Let’s try another method to learn how to expand a background in Photoshop. Open your image and Double-Click on the Background layer to rasterize the layer. 

Step 2

Then hit C to activate the Crop Tool.

Step 3

Drag the lines of the Crop Tool to extend the background as you need.

Step 4

Now press Alt-Shift-Control-C to activate the Content-Aware Scale tool. Hold Shift and drag the lines to extend the background of the image.

This is how your image will look after you’ve gone through the steps to learn how to expand a background in Photoshop:

Step 5

Content Aware Scale is a great tool when you’re working with landscape images, as it’s okay if some natural elements such as water, grass, and bushes get stretched or squashed a bit, but I don’t recommend using this method with portraits, as this can affect the facial proportions and give you results like this one:

3. How to Extend a Background in Photoshop With the Image Extend Add-on

Step 1

The previous technique can make some areas of your image look blurry, and you can lose the quality of your image. To avoid this, let’s try the Image Extend add-on as we use Photoshop to extend the background of a photo. Open the image you want to use, and then go to Window > Extensions > Image Extend to open the add-on.

Step 2

Here you can choose which side of the background you want to extend and how many pixels you want to add. Let’s put a tick on Content-Aware and then set all the sides to 200 px to extend a photo background.

Step 3

After that, just hit Extend and wait a little to extend the picture background.

Awesome Work! You’ve Learned How to Expand a Background in Photoshop!

Here is our final result! Using these simple methods in Photoshop to extend the background of a photo, you can get the desired result for almost any image. Don’t forget to try the Image Extend add-on as this is a really handy tool with great options and good results.

Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube Channel if you want to watch a step-by-step tutorial on how to extend a picture in Photoshop:

Lastly, I’d like to recommend a product from Envato, which can help you to extend a background in Photoshop in a few simple clicks:

Image Extend: Clipping & Expansion Kit (ZXP)

Image Extend is an add-on which will help you use Photoshop to extend the background of a photo by extending their edges. It will keep the quality of your image and help you avoid any blurred areas because this add-on creates new pixel data and fills areas based on the existing content. This panel will be really handy if you need to extend a background in Photoshop for a series of images.

Explore More Awesome Photoshop Resources

Once you’ve learned to expand a photo background, you may want to discover more Photoshop tips and tricks. If that’s the case, check out these amazing tutorials:

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