How to add images correctly to a Photoshop artboard

Hi there, this video we're going to look at adding graphics properly. I say properly so that when we need to update this we can update multiple Artboards all at once. We talk about work flow, getting a set up right, Doesn't take any longer, you just got to know what to do, let me show you how. When you're bringing in graphics, up until now we've been doing a lot of opening and just kind of copying across. So from the 'Exercise Files', bring in 'Daniel Scott'. And I can make sure I go back to my Move Tool, and just kind of copied across. 

There's nothing wrong with this, I just got to make sure-- where do I drag it up to, cutting up on any old Artboard, especially if it's a big image like this. And when I do get it in make sure the first thing I do is convert it to a Smart Object, but even easy - I'm going to delete that one there - is have your Artboard selected, and go to 'File', and go to 'Place Embedded', or 'Linked', whichever works for you. Embedded is going to stick it inside this Photoshop file, so it's kind of always in here. The file's a little bigger but I find it most useful. Linked is when you're dealing with huge files, and like InDesign, it kind of keeps the file somewhere else. Means you can't lose them, but it keeps Photoshop ticking along nice and quickly. Let's use Place Embedded. And instead of Daniel Scott, I am going to use the logo for Photoshop. 'File', 'Place'. Here's the size, yes, that works for me. 

Let me get it just a touch bigger to fit my profile. This one here, I'm going to duplicate across. So the other way to bring it in is maybe from your library. So I'm going to go to my library, which have already got my graphic in. There it is there, I can drag it in this way. You can see here, I dragged it in, but I'm still-- I've got this one highlighted. So this thing over here goes, well I can't see it because I'm not on that Artboard. And this is just one of the problems with Artboards. Is you got to be quite intentional. If I hit 'Return' now, it did end up in the right place, but because I was telling Photoshop, I was meant to be over here, it kind of freaked out for a second. That's okay. It's not even the graphic I want, I want the flag-- where's my certification flag? Here I am. 

So I'm an Adobe Certified Expert for Photoshop. Hit 'Return', and I add this here. Where am I going to stick it in? Along there. Make sure it's either 'File', 'Place' or 'Embedded', dragged in from the library. Or if you do copy and paste it, make sure it's a Smart Object, because the Smart Object's really the thing we want here for updating lots. So let's say we want to move from once, and the other. I need this expert logo over here. I can click it, hold it-- wrong layer. Click it, hold it, and drag it, while holding down the 'Option' key on a Mac, 'Alt' key on a PC. To get it to this one here I can hold down the 'Option' key on my Mac, 'Alt' key on a PC, and I can drag it. And that works some of the time. 

I find that, with a small object, it's fine, with these bigger objects, say like this image back here, and I try and duplicate that over there, it's done okay, because you're watching. Sending it to the back, making him smaller. And you'll notice that my background here got tuned into this, kind of colored layer here, I'm just going to delete it, I don't need it. So dragging it is fine, now you're watching, but it does run into problems, so what do you do? The easiest way is, say I want this over here now, so I'm going to go, you, get it to the right position for this one. Want it down here. The other nice thing about using this technique, it should end up in the right place, or roughly. So in my Layers Panel here, I'm going to right click the logo, I'm going to say, duplicate, my friend. I'm going to say, where do you want it to go, I'm going to say, this Artboard, which is my Instagram profile, please. Give it the same name, and it just moves across. 

That's really handy when you've got lots of objects. Let's say that I'm going to create something new. So I'm going to jump to my 'Artboard Tool'. Shortcut for that, if you're looking for shortcuts, it's hold 'Shift V', and it kind of just toggles between the Move Tool and the Artboard Tool. I want a new document, and it's going to be the cover photo for say Facebook. Facebook uses 351 by 310. Don't worry too much about the sizes here, they seem to change it all the time. So just Google 'Facebook cover photo 2018'. And the cover photo's different from the fan page photo. There's all sorts of different things, just check what you're doing. We've got it here, nothing's really happening. I can just click once, so I'm going to keep my Facebook stuff over here. I'm going to 'Shift-click' both of these. Just move them over, and it's going to be my little Facebook group. I'm going to give it a name. And what you'd find with Artboards, these guys get messy. I'm going to have a full video on how to work with Artboards a little bit better, but just because we need it now, if you 'Command-click' the arrow on it, it just means it closes all of them up at once and just looks tidy. 

So where is my Facebook copy? That is my Facebook cover photo. There's no reason why you can't drag it to kind of keep them together. Doesn't really affect anything in here except when we export. Just means this page is going to be straight after this page. Which might make sense. So now I want a chunk of stuff. So I want everything on this graphic to be moved over here. The way I do that is I just have them all selected. So here, my Photoshop Essentials, Instagram, it's got all the bits I need. I'm selecting them all, right click any one of them, go to 'Duplicate'. And just like before, just pick the one you want it to go to. Cover photo. Hopefully over here now, little bits and pieces. That's why we're using Smart Objects, I guess, is that these can all be resized now. My Photoshop logo can be bigger. because it's a vector file, same with my little edgy thing. And same with this kind of graphic here. 

Smart Object, it's a lot bigger than what we're using it for. Let's look at another kind of issue that happens, that we want to try and mitigate. This image isn't very big. I'm going to try and break it. Look how big it is, overlapping these guys, it's not going anywhere but, it happens to me all the time when you're not here. Gets out of it, breaks out of its home, and it doesn't know where to go, and it ends up back there. It's over there. They're all too close together, I've been too good and kept them far apart. Let's say that this is your problem, and you're like, "Where did I end up?" You're hitting it up over here, but you're like, no, no, just be. And it's just, it's now fighting back, it's good. Let's say, you my friend live here, you're not allowed to move. With that layer selected there's this option here. And this just says, you my friend do not go anywhere, you are fused to this Artboard. Prevent auto nesting. You can see, basically just locks it. But the cool thing about it is that it can still be moved. Just not outside of its little home. Select everything on its Artboard, and just click on that, they should all stay there. 

Let's look at one other thing, two of the things before we go. One is, you’ve created these Artboards, you just don't want them anymore for some reason. You created two Artboards, and you're like, where are all the pieces? You want to see it all. What you need to do is select all the Artboard names, so we're going to use our trick where we hold down the 'Command' key on a Mac, "Ctrl' key on a PC, just click the arrow, then we can hold 'Shift' and click them all. Go to your layers little flyout here, and there's one that says, Ungroup Artboards, it's not there, it's up here, it's under 'Layer', and there it is. 'Ungroup Artboards', and that just kind of puts everything, just goes "Ah." No boundaries, here we all are. 

That could be nice when somebody send you a file and it's all mixed up. I'm going to undo that because that was not what I want to do. I'll do the last thing. This is not really any Artboard, you can skip along. Just showing you Content Aware Scale for-- because we want it for the rest of the tutorial, and it's, man, it's good for when you're doing these weird letterbox shapes, and it runs into a problem with, I want to use Content Aware Scale, ah, doesn't work. Unfortunately it doesn't work on a Smart Object. So we're going to have to right click it and say 'Rasterize Layer'. I know exactly what I want to do, but it's what I have to do to make this work. 

So now, 'Edit', 'Content Aware Scale'. And I'm going to just magic up more background. My shadow gets bigger, I'm happy with it. 'Return'. Now I'm going to turn it back into a Smart Object, because later on I'm going to duplicate it and want to use it. I'm going to send it to the back, and that will be enough for this video. There's more Artboard stuff to come so check out the next video.