In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to place a logo or a design in perspective
non-destructively so that you can always come back and make any changes that you want.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Photoshop Training Channel.
My name is Jesus Ramirez and you can find me on Instagram @JRfromPTC.
In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to place any design or logo onto any surface
in perspective, and we’re going to do it all non-destructively.
In that way, you can always come back and edit the contents of that design or logo.
This is a technique that I came up with when I was working as a designer and it’s really
helpful in a production environment where you have to work non-destructively and you
have to work fast.
Also, make sure that you stick around until the end of the tutorial so that you can see
how I used Adjustment Layers to make this composite more realistic.
And even though we’re working with a billboard in this tutorial, you can apply the principles
that you’re going to learn to any other surface.
Like the side of a wall, the side of a truck, or anything else really.
Okay, let’s get started.
We’re going to work this file that contains our Background image that contains this blank
billboard and this is where we’re going to place our design.
We also have this layer here, titled “Company Logo” and this is a generic company logo
with some text.
And if we wanted to place this company logo onto this design, what might have seen in
the past is people telling you to press Ctrl T/ Command T to Transform, and then right
click and select Distort and try to match the perspective.
And you can probably eyeball it and get a decent result.
But that’s not what we’re going to do here so I’m going to press the Escape key.
And the biggest problem is that we don’t know the aspect ratio of this billboard.
Even if we have something with a similar shape we can’t match the corners of the billboard
to match our design because it will be distorted.
It’s a different aspect ratio.
So if I press Ctrl T/ Command T to Transform and select Distort and try to match it, we
might get the perspective right, but this won’t necessarily be the right aspect ratio.
We’re Stretching the image and sure, we can right-click and select Scale, hold Shift
Alt/ Shift Option on the Mac and scale it down to try to center it but that doesn’t
solve our problem.
I know that some of you may be thinking that we could use New Blank Layer then select the
company logo and make a copy of it by going to Edit + Copy and then in the blank layer
using the Vanishing Point.
And the Vanishing Point simply allows you to make a grid where you can paste something
in perspective, and that sort of solves our problem.
We have this grid here and I can press Ctrl V/Command V to place that logo and I can move
it in perspective, and that works.
But the problem is that this is not a Smart Object.
We cannot apply that filter using a Smart Object.
So, I want to be able to have Smart Object that I can just place anything I want in there
and have it match the perspective with the billboard.
So, I’m going to disable this and what I recommend you do is use this little trick
that, again, as I said before this is something that I came up with when I was working as
a designer when I was doing a lot of these types of jobs.
I’m not sure if anybody else is using this technique, but I certainly haven’t seen
anyone use it on a YouTube video so I decided to create this tutorial for you.
And basically, you select the Perspective Crop Tool and I’ve already setup guides
on this image to make things a little easier for me,, so I’m going to press Ctrl H/ Command
H on the Mac.
So, I have these guides that I created offscreen but they’re simple to create.
You just need to click and drag on the rulers.
If you don’t have the rulers, you can go into View + Rulers.
And that’s how you enable and disable them.
And I only really did is create a Rulers that match the corners of my billboard and I have
Snap selected under View.
So, I can quickly click in that corner and it will snap to the next corner and click.
In that way, I always make sure that I’m clicking on the right corner.
And what the Perspective Crop Tool does is it takes something into perspective, like
so.
And then you’ll commit the changes and it crops it and removes the perspective.
So now we have a flat view of that billboard.
So now we know exactly what the aspect ratio of that billboard is.
So, I’m simply going to press Ctrl A/ Command on the Mac to Select All, so I’m selecting
everything on the canvas, then I can either use a keyboard shortcut or go into Edit +
Copy Merged.
Then I’m going to undo.
So I’m going to press Ctrl Alt Z / Command Option Z on the Mac to undo and I’m going
to undo several steps until we go back into the original image.
Then, I can go into Edit + Paste, or I could press Ctrl V/ Command V on the Mac to Paste.
So now this layer here is going to be our Placeholder.
So, I’m going to rename it Placeholder, then I’m going to convert it into a Smart
Object.
So, I’m going to right-click and select Convert to Smart Object.
Then I’m going to press Ctrl T/ Command T to Transform, then right click and select
Distort.
And I’m just going to click and drag the corners to those same spots.
And I’m going to commit the changes by either hitting Enter or clicking on the checkmark
and I’m going to press Ctrl H/ Command H on the Mac to hide all extras including the
guides.
And you’ll see now that we essentially have the original image once again.
But now, I can double click on the Placeholder and this is my template for anything I want
to put on that billboard.
So, I can go back into my original design and select this company logo.
I’m going to click on the Move Tool, click and drag that logo on to the next tab by hovering
over the tab and holding Shift and releasing and that will place the logo in the center.
And I really don’t need this Placeholder for now, so I can just disable it and I can
press Ctrl S/ Command S on the Mac to save.
And now that logo is in perspective, and let me disable the original.
Now the advantage of using this workflow is that I can double-click on this Placeholder
Smart Object and I can add any image that I want and it will always be in perspective.
So, let me select an image from my Library’s panel and I’m just going to select this
image of Hong Kong and just drag it into place and I’m going to scale it so that it fits
the entire canvas.
And it’s okay that I’m covering the logo, I really don’t need it.
And I’m also going to select the Type Tool and just type Photoshop Training Channel,
and then click on that checkmark to commit the changes.
And here’s the trick for you, if you press Ctrl A/ Command A on the Mac to Select All,
then click on the Move Tool, you can click on the center verticals and center horizontal
buttons and now the text is right in the center.
But I really don’t want it in the center vertically, I want it a little lower, so right
about here.
Then I can press Ctrl S/ Command S to save and if I go back into my perspective, there
it is.
And you might notice that we have a few problems.
Number one, we haven’t properly masked the building so I’m going to go and undo that
now and I’m going to disable
And one of the easiest ways of doing it is by selecting the Polygonal Lasso Tool and
just zoom in and make a selection around this area of the building.
And you only have to be precise on the top here, the rest, really, is not that important
in terms of being precise.
Then you can hold Alt/ Option on the Mac, and click on the Layer Mask Icon to create
an inverted layer mask.
Then when I zoom out, you’ll see that we have that part.
Then, I’m going to change the Blending Mode of this layer to Multiply.
In this case, this particular background doesn’t really have a shadow but if it did, I would
want that shadow to come through and the Multiply Blending Mode will do that for me.
Also, it will make it easier for me to mask out these lights.
So, I’m going to click on the zoom tool, zoom into one of these lights and in the Placeholder
Layer Mask, I’m going to paint with black in areas that I want to reveal these lights.
And I’m using the bracket keys on the keyboard to reduce the size of my brush.
And for something like this maybe you want to use a harder brush, something that is not
so soft.
We have hard edges.
So, those soft edges don’t do that good of a job in this type of masking.
So, that’s our first light.
What I’m going to do now is pause the video and continue with the other lights so you
don’t waste time watching me do the same thing three times.
Okay, I’ve gone headed and masked out all the lights from the billboard so this is my
result.
And, again, you really didn’t miss much.
I just essentially did the same thing that you saw me do with all the other lights.
Now, the final step is to make the billboard look a little more realistic.
After all, this is a compositing job.
So, if you look at the billboard there’s a couple of things that don’t look realistic.
Number one, it doesn’t look like it fit on the scene and the reason is that the original
image from the city doesn’t match the atmosphere, the luminance of our scene.
So, one of the things that you can do is create a black and white adjustment layer just so
that you can remove the color of the image and just look at the luminous values.
And that helps your brain really see what’s going on.
So I’m going to click on the Placeholder and then create a Levels Adjustment Layer.
Click on this icon to clip it to the layer below.
Then I can use this middle slider to adjust the Contrast.
And I think it’s got too much contrast and I think that the darks are too dark.
So I’m going to click and drag this slider to the right a little bit and, at least, to
my eye, that looks much better.
And this is what it looks like with colour.
So, that’s before and after.
Also, I think that this layer has a lot of Saturation.
So, I’m going to create a Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer, clip it to the area below
and I’m just going to drag the Saturation down on the entire image, like so.
And now this looks a little bit more like a print on a billboard.
So, that’s before and after.
And the advantage of using this workflow is you can always come back and make adjustments
to the contents of this billboard without having to redo anything else.
I’m going to double-click on the Placeholder and maybe we’re working on a campaign that
has different cities.
So we have Hong Kong there and we can also drag in, maybe Sydney.
So now we have an image of Sydney here, I’m just going to make that larger so that it
fits within the canvas, and I’m going to drag it below the word Photoshop Training
Channel, but this time I’m going to click and drag the words Photoshop Training Channel
to the top, right there.
Press Ctrl S/ Command S to save, go back into my working document and there it is.
Everything is in perspective.
And that’s it for this tutorial.
I hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned something new.
Let me know in the comments if you enjoy this perspective crop technique.
Also, if this your first time in the Photoshop Training Channel, don’t forget to click
on the subscribe button.
Thank you so much for watching and I will talk to you again soon.