Canvas Size: It's getting the best of me...

[Alfonso R]

Hi all,

First time posting, but I'm frustrating myself beyond belief and it seems like I'm missing something simple.  I'll start off by explaining what I'm trying to do.  

I'm currently working on some overlays for photographs.  Long story short, I use them for spotmyphotos which allows me to share photos immediately as I take them and it also applies the overlay I've created.  Because I will be taking photos both vertical and horizontal I need to create 2 overlays.  This is my horizontal overlay.  

My attempt is to make this file vertical without creating another overlay.  I'm trying to adjust my canvas size to 6x9 inches.  

When I click "ok" my canvas does not change.  I actually can't tell it made a vertical canvas until I click on the "crop" tool.  Do I have something "checked" in a box that isn't allowing me to see the canvas size change without clicking on the crop tool?

When I click on the crop tool, it does show me the canvas changed to vertical, but this is all I see.  

When I hit "enter" it goes back to this.  

I watched multiple videos on expanding the canvas and it works so easy in videos, but I'm becoming frustrated with this simple task.  Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong?  Do I need to be clicked on a certain layer when I try to do this?  

I appreciate any help on this.

[barbara_a]

I may not be understanding correctly. With the horizontal canvas, coiuldn't you choose Image > Image Rotation > 90 degrees?

[Alfonso R]

I could do that, but because I have text that needs to stay at the bottom of the image this doesn't work.  

[LAMY2017]

A favor, Alfonso - back up a step.

Is the original Landscape 6x9?

Is the Overlay a standalone, transparent document meant to be Placed (File>Place...) into another document?

--

edited to add: I tried to perfom the steps. I could have done something different than you did -- but I was able to change a 6x9 emptyLandscape document to a 6x9 Portrait document.

[Alfonso R]

The original canvas size is 1800px x 1200px.

The overlay is a standalone and it is a document meant to be uploaded to the software I use for photo sharing.  Whenever I take the photo it gets uploaded to the cloud and the overlay gets applied automatically.  This is the overlay for the horizontal photos and I'd like to create one for vertical photos.  

I opened a photo from my computer and changed the canvas size and it worked perfectly.  I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong within these layers for this function not to work...

[D Fosse]

From your screenshot and description it appears the canvas size already is 9 high by 6 wide (see "original size"). It seems you have empty space at the top.

In any case you need to rearrange the bottom elements to fit the narrower size, since it needs to be cropped from 9 down to 6.

All this becomes much easier to deal with if you set all sizes in pixels. That's the real size of the file. Any physical measurements are relative to whatever ppi value you set.

[D Fosse]

This is what you should be seeing, if the starter document really was landscape at 9 wide by 6 high:

[Alfonso R]

I tried it in pixels and I see the exact message when I click enter.  Here is the screen shot of that exact process.  

When I click proceed, this is what I see...which doesn't look right...this is where I'm baffled.

However, if I click on the crop tool I see this, which looks closer to what I'm looking for.

I've watched multiple videos of this process and whenever I watch people change the canvas size it immediately changes.  However, in this file it does not.  When I open a single photo and adjust the canvas size it works seamlessly.

Thanks for your input, still trying different things.

[Alfonso R]

I'm not sure if this would help you think through the process, but when I flattened the layers and changed the canvas it worked no problem.  Do I need to be clicked on a particular layer whenever I change the canvas size?  I wouldn't think so, but still not sure why it works when the layers are flattened.  

Alfonso

[D Fosse]

It sounds like maybe you have "hidden" content outside the canvas boundary? That's perfectly possible with floating layers. All it takes is a stray pixel. When you flatten, that's deleted.

[Alfonso R]

Fosse, I appreciate you sticking with me through this process.  I'm going to share the video of what "i'm trying" to achieve.  This is a video of the owner showing the process of going horizontal to vertical.

https://vimeo.com/539788311/5e09ef6412?&signup=true#_=_

I've used this process before because we've made overlays before, however last time and this time I've had this same issues we're working through.  I'm wondering if I have a "box checked" that isn't allowing this to work for me.  

Thanks again!

[Conrad_C]

I watched the video, and the video makes sense as presented. But there’s one difference between the video and what you’re doing, and that difference might explain what’s going on. 

The sequence in the video is:

1. Start with the horizontal canvas version.

2. Using the command Image > Canvas Size, anchored to the document bottom, enter a Height value that will result in the vertical aspect ratio you want. 

3. Using the command Image > Image Size, resample to the final pixel dimensions. 

The thing is, unless I missed something, I don’t see you using Image Size anywhere in this thread so far. Earlier you showed using Canvas Size for step 3 as well. That explains why you get the “…new canvas size will be smaller…” warning, because that warning is specific to Canvas Size. What you’re meant to do in step 3 is something different, resampling the canvas, which is the job of Image Size.

Another way to say this is to state the difference between Canvas Size and Image Size:

• Canvas size is for adding or removing area from the document. 
• Image size is about scaling the canvas, and if Resample is selected, then scaling while also resampling the document (changing the number of pixels in it). 

The video‘s first step is changing the aspect ratio and their second step is resampling, so they first use Canvas Size followed by Image Size (with Resample enabled), and that’s what you have to do too.

[Alfonso R]

I never got to image size because the canvas size was not getting larger, atleast as I can tell.  Whenever I would adjust the canvas size, I was left with the same image looking horizontal.  I was stuck on step 2, if that makes sense.

I did go on and try to adjust image size but still wasn't getting what I needed.  If i have a border around a landscape file, and I turn the file size vertical, should the box around the horizontal photo now switch to be a border around a vertical image when I adjust the image size?  Hopefully that made sense...

I'm not Photoshop savy, so I appreciate the walking through and insight.  I will keep trying!

[ExUSA]

Try starting with a square canvas maybe, and cropping for output. Or use Artboards, they are made for this kind of task

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/artboards.html

[Conrad_C]

I never got to image size because the canvas size was not getting larger, atleast as I can tell.  Whenever I would adjust the canvas size, I was left with the same image looking horizontal.  I was stuck on step 2, if that makes sense.

By Alfonso R

There are ways to monitor the size numerically, to see how it changes as you work. You should be monitoring the current size both visually and numerically. Both are shown in the demo below. It shows two ways to monitor size numerically: The Info panel, and the status bar at the bottom if you set it to Document Dimensions. I show both, but you only have to use whichever one you like more. (A third way of verifying numerically is to make the ruler visible.) 

The demo below is done assuming the goal is to transform an 1800 x 1200 px horizontal template to a 1200 x 1800 vertical template, keeping the graphic all the way across the bottom. In the demo below I totally ignore inches and ppi, which is appropriate if the template is for photos shared online only. If these are print templates, it’s the same procedure but then it would be appropriate to work out the numbers in inches and ppi, not pixels.

Steps shown, and the thinking behind them: 

1. Verify current document dimensions in the Info panel. 

2. Verify current document dimensions in the status bar. It starts out set to its default readout, Document Sizes, so we click the > and change it to Document Dimensions. 

Both say it’s currently 1800 x 1200 px, as expected. 

3. Choose Image > Canvas Size.  The Width must be retained to keep the bottom graphics going all the way across, so only the Height can change. 

4. To keep the graphics at the bottom, Anchor is set to bottom, and Height is changed to 2700 px. 

Why 2700? The template is currently 3:2 aspect ratio (1800 x 1200 px). To maintain this as a vertical aspect ratio, if the Width must stay at 1800, the Height must be an additional third. 1800/2 is 900, so 900*3 is 2700 px, which we enter. 

5. After applying Canvas Size, we can numerically confirm in the Info panel and status bar that the new document dimensions are 1800 x 2700 px. Additionally, we can visually confirm this by choosing View > Fit on Screen; we see the canvas is now a vertical 2:3 aspect ratio. 

The problem now is that the template needs to be 1200 x 1800 px. To get there is a resize (not adding or removing area with Canvas Size, which if done from this point would screw up the bottom graphics), so…

6. Choose Image > Image Size. Both Resample and the “link width and height” icon (preserve aspect ratio) options must be enabled.

7. Height is set to 1800 px. The current aspect ratio is 2:3 and aspect ratio lock is enabled, so the only thing that can happen after entering 1800 is that Width becomes 1200 px, which is exactly what we want. We apply that.

8. Again we can both numerically and visually confirm that the current document dimensions are correct, and they do confirm that we now have a vertical template at 1800 x 1200 px.