Photoshop Ninja
Expert Photoshop tips and tricks for designers and photographers since 2005
Creating a solid background – the sensible way!
Designers and web creatives take note – start creating backgrounds that auto-fill your canvas, whatever size you make it!
I often see Photoshop files where the background is filled with a flat colour. The simple way to do this is to simply select all and fill with the desired colour – but what if you change your canvas size… back to step one because your left with a rectangle filled with one colour surrounded by your background colour! There is a simpler, more flexible way of-course!
This is an easy little tip to remember – instead of the long winded way detailed above, simply create a solid fill layer – its on the adjustment layers menu at the bottom of the layers palette. Once in place, get rid of the layer mask that is automatically created.
You have now created a flexible background that will fill any dimension of canvas (if you remove the layer mask as detailed above). It is much quicker to edit the colour – just double click on the colour chip in the layers palette. It also takes up less memory, and applies much quicker than selecting a large canvas and filling it with colour. The final advantage is that it takes up less memory, which is always an good news when you are working in Photoshop!
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Written by Jonny Allbut - freelance graphic designer
Last modified: 4 March, 2009 (10:51) | First published: 24 May, 2008
Filed under Techniques - Layer, Techniques - Web 3 Comments »
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Comment by Doug C.
June 9, 2008 @ 11:21 pm
Jonny, what an awesome tip. Thank you! You are truly a Ninja. The tips and information on this wonderful site are worthy of a link on my blog.
- dc
Comment by Photoshop Ninja
June 10, 2008 @ 9:08 am
Cheers Doug – I’m glad you are picking up some quality tips here!! Remember to drop back again and check out some more soon!
Comment by Artologics
January 16, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
Thanks. Many time I have difficulties to solve the problem.