This tutorial will show you how to insert a picture into a shape using Adobe Photoshop. As you'll see, it's easy to put a photo into any type of shape, from basic rectangles or circles to fancy custom shapes. This tutorial will use a custom shape and the article will show you how to load all the missing shapes in Photoshop for more options.
Step 1: Create a new document
Start by creating a new Photoshop document. If you're on the home screen, click the button New file.
Or you can go to the menu File in the menu bar and select New.
Then, click the button Create.
And Photoshop creates a new document.
Step 2: Open the Shapes panel
The fastest way to draw custom shapes in Photoshop is to add them from the Shapes panel. To open this panel, go to the menu Window and choose Shapes.
The Shapes panel opens in a secondary panel column to the left of the main panels. You can show or hide a board by clicking its icon.
At first, all we see are the default shapes divided into groups.
You can rotate any group to reveal the shapes within that group by clicking the arrow next to its folder icon.
And you can drag the bottom of the Shapes panel down to expand it and see multiple shapes at once.
Step 3: Load missing shapes
To load all the missing shapes available in Photoshop, click the panel menu icon Shapes.
Then choose Legacy Shapes and More.
A new Legacy Shapes and More group appears below the defaults.
And inside there were two more groups. 2019 Shapes contains hundreds of new shapes added to Photoshop 2020. And All Legacy Default Shapes contains classic shapes from older versions of Photoshop.
Step 4: Choose a shape
This tutorial will use one of the classic shapes. The example will open the All Legacy Default Shapes group.
Then scroll down Nature and click to open.
And inside Nature, use a butterfly image.
Step 5: Drag and drop the image onto the canvas
To add a shape, simply click and drag the shape thumbnail from the Shapes panel and drop it onto the canvas.
Photoshop draws the shape when you release the mouse button.
Step 6: Resize and center the image
Before resizing the image, go up Options Bar and make sure the link icon is selected between fields Width and Height Leave the image's aspect ratio locked.
Then, resize the shape by clicking and dragging any of the transform handles. If you hold down the key Alt (Win) / Options (Mac) on the keyboard when dragging, you resize the shape from its center.
Click and drag the shape to the center of the canvas. As you get closer to the center, it will click into place.
Then, click the check mark in the Options Bar to accept.
In the table Layersthe shape appears on its own layer. We know it's a shape layer through the icon in the lower right corner of the thumbnail.
Step 7: Check the Fill and Stroke options in the Properties panel
With the shape layer selected, the Properties panel gives access to all of the shape's options, including Fill and Stroke.
By default, Photoshop uses black for the Fill color, which is okay because we won't see that color anyway after inserting the image into the shape.
But Photoshop also adds a 1-pixel black stroke around the shape.
You can add Stroke later if desired. But for now, turn off Stroke by clicking the Stroke swatch:
And click on the icon No Color in the upper left corner of the table. Then, click outside the panel to close it or tap Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) on the keyboard.
Step 8: Place the image into the document
Next, we'll place our image into the document. And since we want the image to appear in the same document as our shape, let's use Photoshop's Place Embedded command.
Go to menu File and choose Place Embedded.
Navigate to where the image is saved on your computer. In the example case, the image is in a folder on the desktop. Click the image to select it, then click Place.
Photoshop will add the image in front of the shape. If the image is larger than the document size, Photoshop will resize it to fit. Images being used are from Adobe Stock.
We will resize the image after placing it on the shape. Now, click the check mark in the Options Bar to accept.
Back in the Layers panel, the image appears on a new layer above the shape layer. And note that Photoshop has converted the image into a smart object, we can tell this by the smart object icon in the lower right corner of the thumbnail. This means that no matter how many times we resize the image, the quality of the image does not decrease.
Step 9: Create clipping mask
Currently, the image is in front of the shape. To place the image into the shape, click the Layers panel menu icon.
Then choose Create Clipping Mask.
Clipping mask will clip the image to the underlying shape, meaning the only part of the image that remains visible is the area directly above or in front of the shape. Any part of the image that is outside the shape is hidden from view, creating the illusion that the image is actually inside the shape.
Back in the Layers panel, notice that the image layer is now indented to the right, with a small arrow pointing down to the shape layer below. This is how Photoshop tells us that we have created a clipping mask.
Step 10: Resize and reposition the image using Free Transform
To resize and reposition an image inside a shape, go to the menu Edit and choose Free Transform.
In the Options Bar, make sure the link icon is selected between the Width and Height fields.
Then, resize the image by dragging any of the transform handles. You can hold down the key Alt (Win) / Options (Mac) on the keyboard when dragging the handle to resize the image from its center.
Then, drag the image to position the object within the shape. You may need to go back and forth between resizing and repositioning the image until you get it right.
When you're done, click the check mark in the Options Bar.
