Photoshop Tutorial: Tips on How to Insert Photos into a Template

One of the most commonly asked questions from a Photoshop newbie is, "How do you get your pictures into those cool collage templates?" In Photoshop, there are several ways to do it, but I'm going to walk you through one of the easiest ways in this tutorial. You can use this method with Photoshop 7 through the Photoshop CS versions, and you can use any type of Adobe Photoshop template. This tutorial will have your putting your pictures into everything from picture collages to greeting cards in no time.

To begin, open Photoshop and then open your template. Templates can be designed a number of ways. Some have just a hole for you to put your picture into and others may have a colored area. It doesn't really matter which type of template you are using, as long as it is compatible with Photoshop. What does matter is that you need to create a selection on your template where you will want to place your photo.

In photoshop, open your tool bar. Photoshop's tool bar is generally on the left side. If you do not see the tool bar, you can open it by going to Window (at the top) and selecting tools. Photoshop has a variety of tools you can use to create a selection. If you have a solid colored area on your template where the photo should go, you can simply select your magic wand tool and touch the colored area to select it. You will know you have it selected by the marching ant lines. You can also use the marquee tool to create a shape selection. The most common shapes for templates are rectangles, but you can use any shape at all. When you make a selection in Photoshop, you will see a marching ant line. Whatever shape you select with those marching ant lines, will be the shape that your photo shows. You can even select letter shapes and drop your photos into the letters!

Once you have your selection, open your photo that you want to use into Photoshop. Once the photo has been edited and is ready to insert, go up to Select and then All, and then go to Edit and then Copy. You can then minimize the photo in Photoshop by clicking on the minus sign to move it out of your way. Go back to your template and make sure your selection is still active (look for those marching ants). Go to Edit and then Paste Into. The Paste Into command puts your photo directly inside of the selection that you created, Make sure you choose Paste Into and not just Paste or your photo will cover the whole template.If you find that your image is too big, too small, or not centered; don't worry because we'll fix that.

Go back to Edit and choose Free Transform. Hold down then shift key and then use your mouse to drag the corners of the image to make it bigger or smaller. In Photoshop, holding down the shift key when you free transform is very important because it keeps your proportions right. If you don't hold down the shift key when you drag, your image will become distorted. Next use the move tool to move your image into the right place; then just double click on the image to finish the transformation. Flatten your image by going up to Layer and Flatten Image and then save your image in Photohsop with a new file name so that you don't overwrite your template. That's all there is to it!

Next time, try using some odd shapes to have a little fun. Try writing some letters in Photoshop and using them for a template. Use the magic wand tool to select each letter and paste your photo into the selection. Photoshop can seem like a very confusing program at first, but once you learn all the little tips and tricks it can be very easy to use.