Photoshop CS6 Tutorial: Fun with "Content-Aware Move Tool"

In this Post, I want to share with you a fun and functional new feature that I think you are really going to like. This new feature has to do with how we can now work with the Content Aware Move tool. And in order to illustrate how this feature works we're gonna do a small project which will begin with making a selection of the subject. You can chose any photo you want to elf. We will then refine the edge of the selection. Then we'll move to step two where we start to work with the Content Aware Move tool. And what we're going to do is move or replicate the subject in multiple instances.

And as you'll see this new feature allows us to accomplish things much more quickly than would have been previously possible before. All right, well let's begin by making our selection. Here we'll use the Quick Select tool. You can click on that in the Tools panel. Make sure you're in the background layer and then just click and drag over the area that you want to select. And here, there isn't really anything new.This tool's been around for awhile but this is just setting things up so I can show you how this new feature works. You want to just click and drag around, make sure you have all your edges selected and whatnot.

Then click on refine edge and the refine edge dialog will turn on Smart Radius and bring up the radius just a touch and we'll bring up a little bit of the contrast there. That just strengthens the overall edge. Now after we've done that the next step is to click OK. That is step one.Make a selection. Nothing new so far. The magic will happen in step two. For step two we're gonna go back to the Tools Panel. Click on the Spot Healing Brush then choose Content Aware Move.

Once you've selected that you want to dial in your options up here in the options bar. First we have two different modes, move or extend.You can think of move if we were to use that, it would be the option of moving this guy and he would be in a new spot but there'd only be one version of him. It would cover up where he used to be. Extend on the other hand gives us the ability to duplicate or triplicate whatever it is that we've selected. So we want to chose extend. Now what about structure? If you want to maintain the structure, in other words if we want him to still look just like he does here, we want a high value.

So here I'm gonna chose a high value. Why would you chose a low value? Well maybe you're using this method to cover something up. So you're kind of covering up a problem area on the sand. Well you could use a low structure because it doesn't really matter how the sand actually looks. But because it's a person, high value. Color if you want the image or the are to blend together with the colors, bring this up.We don't so we'll leave that down. Sample all layers, turn that on so we can apply the creative adjustments up here. And then here's the new feature, Transform on Drop.

Seems like a small little check box, but this really has a lot of magic in it. When we chose this option what we can then do is position our cursor over the selection that we've made and click and drag. When I bring him back here, all of a sudden he's too tall, right? Well, why is that? Well it's because areas or things that are further away from the camera should appear smaller. So if we want to bring him to this area right here what we need to do is transform him. When you let go of your cursor button, you can do that. On drop those transform handles show up. Now just hold down the Shift key and click and drag and you can see how we can re-size this.

Previously this would have just would have taken so much time to do something like this. And so here we're getting it in the right spot Then just press enter on Windows or return on Mac and Wa-La it's done. We have him in a new area. Want another version? Well, I'm just gonna click and drag and bring him back here. He's too tall in that area. So then let go. Transform on Drop shows up. 

And hold down the shift key to maintain that aspect ratio and then just get him over there in that area. Then press enter or return. Now after you've finished doing whatever it is that you want to do, go to your select pull-down menu and chose deselect in order to deselect there.

And as you can see we were able to accomplish this creative effect without a lot of work. And really it's all because of that little, little check box. That powerful feature which is Transform on Drop which gave us this unique ability to move something but then at the same time change it's size. And keep in mind that this feature it's fun and it's functional. It's really fun. It allows you to create or build creative effects like this. It can also help out when you're re-touching away distractions as well.