- Photoshop User Guide
- Introduction to Photoshop
- Photoshop and other Adobe products and services
- Photoshop on the iPad (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop on the iPad | Common questions
- Get to know the workspace
- System requirements | Photoshop on the iPad
- Create, open, and export documents
- Add photos
- Work with layers
- Draw and paint with brushes
- Make selections and add masks
- Retouch your composites
- Work with adjustment layers
- Adjust the tonality of your composite with Curves
- Apply transform operations
- Crop and rotate your composites
- Rotate, pan, zoom, and reset the canvas
- Work with Type layers
- Work with Photoshop and Lightroom
- Get missing fonts in Photoshop on the iPad
- Japanese Text in Photoshop on the iPad
- Manage app settings
- Touch shortcuts and gestures
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Edit your image size
- Livestream as you create in Photoshop on the iPad
- Correct imperfections with the Healing Brush
- Create brushes in Capture and use them in Photoshop on the iPad
- Work with Camera Raw files
- Create and work with Smart Objects
- Adjust exposure in your images with Dodge and Burn
- Auto adjustment commands in Photoshop on the iPad
- Smudge areas in your images with Photoshop on the iPad
- Saturate or desaturate your images using Sponge tool
- Content aware fill for iPad
- Photoshop on the web (not available in mainland China)
- Common questions
- System requirements
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Supported file types
- Introduction to the workspace
- Open and work with cloud documents
- Generative AI features
- Basic concepts of editing
- Quick Actions
- Work with layers
- Retouch images and remove imperfections
- Make quick selections
- Image improvements with Adjustment Layers
- Add a fill layer
- Move, transform, and crop images
- Draw and paint
- Draw and edit Shapes
- Work with Type layers
- Work with anyone on the web
- Manage app settings
- Generate Image
- Generate Background
- Reference Image
- Photoshop (beta) (not available in mainland China)
- Generative AI (not available in mainland China)
- Common questions on generative AI in Photoshop
- Generative Fill in Photoshop on the desktop
- Generate Image with descriptive text prompts
- Generative Expand in Photoshop on the desktop
- Replace background with Generate background
- Get new variations with Generate Similar
- Generative Fill in Photoshop on the iPad
- Generative Expand in Photoshop on the iPad
- Generative AI features in Photoshop on the web
- Content authenticity (not available in mainland China)
- Cloud documents (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop cloud documents | Common questions
- Photoshop cloud documents | Workflow questions
- Manage and work with cloud documents in Photoshop
- Upgrade cloud storage for Photoshop
- Unable to create or save a cloud document
- Solve Photoshop cloud document errors
- Collect cloud document sync logs
- Invite others to edit your cloud documents
- Share files and comment in-app
- Workspace
- Workspace basics
- Preferences
- Learn faster with the Photoshop Discover Panel
- Create documents
- Place files
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Customize keyboard shortcuts
- Tool galleries
- Performance preferences
- Use tools
- Presets
- Grid and guides
- Touch gestures
- Use the Touch Bar with Photoshop
- Touch capabilities and customizable workspaces
- Technology previews
- Metadata and notes
- Place Photoshop images in other applications
- Rulers
- Show or hide non-printing Extras
- Specify columns for an image
- Undo and history
- Panels and menus
- Position elements with snapping
- Position with the Ruler tool
- Web, screen, and app design
- Image and color basics
- How to resize images
- Work with raster and vector images
- Image size and resolution
- Acquire images from cameras and scanners
- Create, open, and import images
- View images
- Invalid JPEG Marker error | Opening images
- Viewing multiple images
- Customize color pickers and swatches
- High dynamic range images
- Match colors in your image
- Convert between color modes
- Color modes
- Erase parts of an image
- Blending modes
- Choose colors
- Customize indexed color tables
- Image information
- Distort filters are unavailable
- About color
- Color and monochrome adjustments using channels
- Choose colors in the Color and Swatches panels
- Sample
- Color mode or Image mode
- Color cast
- Add a conditional mode change to an action
- Add swatches from HTML CSS and SVG
- Bit depth and preferences
- Layers
- Layer basics
- Nondestructive editing
- Create and manage layers and groups
- Select, group, and link layers
- Place images into frames
- Layer opacity and blending
- Mask layers
- Apply Smart Filters
- Layer comps
- Move, stack, and lock layers
- Mask layers with vector masks
- Manage layers and groups
- Layer effects and styles
- Edit layer masks
- Extract assets
- Reveal layers with clipping masks
- Generate image assets from layers
- Work with Smart Objects
- Blending modes
- Combine multiple images into a group portrait
- Combine images with Auto-Blend Layers
- Align and distribute layers
- Copy CSS from layers
- Load selections from a layer or layer mask's boundaries
- Knockout to reveal content from other layers
- Selections
- Get started with selections
- Make selections in your composite
- Select and Mask workspace
- Select with the marquee tools
- Select with the lasso tools
- Adjust pixel selections
- Move, copy, and delete selected pixels
- Create a temporary quick mask
- Select a color range in an image
- Convert between paths and selection borders
- Channel basics
- Save selections and alpha channel masks
- Select the image areas in focus
- Duplicate, split, and merge channels
- Channel calculations
- Get started with selections
- Image adjustments
- Replace object colors
- Perspective warp
- Reduce camera shake blurring
- Healing brush examples
- Export color lookup tables
- Adjust image sharpness and blur
- Understand color adjustments
- Apply a Brightness/Contrast adjustment
- Adjust shadow and highlight detail
- Levels adjustment
- Adjust hue and saturation
- Adjust vibrance
- Adjust color saturation in image areas
- Make quick tonal adjustments
- Apply special color effects to images
- Enhance your image with color balance adjustments
- High dynamic range images
- View histograms and pixel values
- Match colors in your image
- Crop and straighten photos
- Convert a color image to black and white
- Adjustment and fill layers
- Curves adjustment
- Blending modes
- Target images for press
- Adjust color and tone with Levels and Curves eyedroppers
- Adjust HDR exposure and toning
- Dodge or burn image areas
- Make selective color adjustments
- Adobe Camera Raw
- Camera Raw system requirements
- What's new in Camera Raw
- Introduction to Camera Raw
- Create panoramas
- Supported lenses
- Vignette, grain, and dehaze effects in Camera Raw
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Automatic perspective correction in Camera Raw
- Radial Filter in Camera Raw
- Manage Camera Raw settings
- Open, process, and save images in Camera Raw
- Repair images with the Enhanced Spot Removal tool in Camera Raw
- Rotate, crop, and adjust images
- Adjust color rendering in Camera Raw
- Process versions in Camera Raw
- Make local adjustments in Camera Raw
- Image repair and restoration
- Image enhancement and transformation
- Drawing and painting
- Paint symmetrical patterns
- Draw rectangles and modify stroke options
- About drawing
- Draw and edit shapes
- Painting tools
- Create and modify brushes
- Blending modes
- Add color to paths
- Edit paths
- Paint with the Mixer Brush
- Brush presets
- Gradients
- Gradient interpolation
- Fill and stroke selections, layers, and paths
- Draw with the Pen tools
- Create patterns
- Generate a pattern using the Pattern Maker
- Manage paths
- Manage pattern libraries and presets
- Draw or paint with a graphics tablet
- Create textured brushes
- Add dynamic elements to brushes
- Gradient
- Paint stylized strokes with the Art History Brush
- Paint with a pattern
- Sync presets on multiple devices
- Migrate presets, actions, and settings
- Text
- Filters and effects
- Saving and exporting
- Color Management
- Web, screen, and app design
- Video and animation
- Printing
- Automation
- Troubleshooting
In Photoshop you can use the Align and Distribute options to easily line up and properly space your image layers, used frequently for creating panoramic images.
Align objects on different layers
You can align the content of layers and groups using the Move tool . (See Move the content of layers.)
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Do one of the following:
To align multiple layers, select the layers with the Move tool or in the Layers panel, or select a group.
To align the content of one or more layers to a selection border, make a selection in the image, and then select the layers in the Layers panel. Use this method to align to any specified point in the image.
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Choose Layer > Align or Layer > Align Layers To Selection, and choose a command from the submenu. These same commands are available as Alignment buttons in the Move tool options bar.
Top Edges
Aligns the top pixel on the selected layers to the topmost pixel on all selected layers, or to the top edge of the selection border.
Vertical Centers
Aligns the vertical center pixel on each selected layers to the vertical center pixel of all the selected layers, or to the vertical center of the selection border.
Bottom Edges
Aligns the bottom pixel on the selected layers to the bottommost pixel on selected layers, or to the bottom edge of the selection border.
Left Edges
Aligns the left pixel on the selected layers to the left pixel on the leftmost layer, or to the left edge of the selection border.
Horizontal Centers
Aligns the horizontal center pixel on the selected layers to the horizontal center pixel of all the selected layers, or to the horizontal center of the selection border.
Right Edges
Aligns the right pixel on the linked layers to the rightmost pixel on all selected layers, or to the right edge of the selection border.
Distribute layers and groups evenly
Updated in the October 2018 release of Photoshop CC (version 20.0)
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Select three or more layers.
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Choose Layer > Distribute and choose a command. Alternatively, select the Move tool and click a distribution button in the options bar.
Top Edges
Spaces the layers evenly, starting from the top pixel of each layer.
Vertical Centers
Spaces the layers evenly, starting from the vertical center pixel of each layer.
Bottom Edges
Spaces the layers evenly, starting from the bottom pixel of each layer.
Left Edges
Spaces the layers evenly, starting from the left pixel of each layer.
Horizontal Centers
Spaces the layers evenly, starting from the horizontal center of each layer.
Right Edges
Spaces the layers evenly, starting from the right pixel on each layer.
Horizontally
Distributes horizontal spacing between the layers evenly.
Vertically
Distributes vertical spacing between the layers evenly.
Automatically align image layers
The Auto-Align Layers command can automatically align layers based on similar content in different layers, such as corners and edges. You assign one layer as a reference layer, or let Photoshop automatically choose the reference layer. Other layers are aligned to the reference layer so that matching content overlays itself.
Using the Auto-Align Layers command, you can combine images in several ways:
Replace or delete parts of images that have the same background. After aligning the images, use masking or blending effects to combine parts of each image into one image.
Stitch images together that share overlapping content.
For video frames shot against a static background, you can convert frames into layers, then add or delete content across multiple frames.
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Copy or place the images you want to align into the same document.
Each image will be in a separate layer. See Duplicate layers.
Note:You can load multiple images into layers using a script. Choose File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack.
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(Optional) In the Layers panel, create a reference layer by locking it. See Lock layers. If you do not set a reference layer, Photoshop will analyze all the layers and select the one at the center of the final composition as the reference.
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Select the remaining layers you want to align.
To select multiple adjacent layers from the panel, Shift-click; To select noncontiguous layers, Ctrl-Click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS).
Note:Do not select adjustment layers, vector layers, or Smart Objects that do not contain information needed for alignment.
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Choose Edit > Auto-Align Layers, and choose an alignment option. For stitching together multiple images that share overlapping areas—for example, to create a panorama—use the Auto, Perspective, or Cylindrical options. To align scanned images with offset content, use the Reposition Only option.
Auto
Photoshop analyzes the source images and applies either a Perspective or Cylindrical layout, depending on which produces a better composite.
Perspective
Creates a consistent composition by designating one of the source images (by default, the middle image) as the reference image. The other images are then transformed (repositioned, stretched, or skewed, as necessary) so that overlapping content across layers is matched.
Cylindrical
Reduces the "bow‑tie" distortion that can occur with the Perspective layout by displaying individual images as on an unfolded cylinder. Overlapping content across layers is still matched. The reference image is placed at the center. Best suited for creating wide panoramas.
Spherical
Aligns images with wide fields of view (vertical and horizontal). Designates one of the sources images (the middle image, by default) as the reference image and spherically transforms the other images so that overlapping content is matched.
Scene Collage
Aligns layers and matches overlapping content, without changing the shape of the objects in the image (for example, a circle will still be a circle).
Reposition Only
Aligns the layers and matches overlapping content, but does not transform (stretch or skew) any of the source layers.
Lens Correction
Automatically corrects for lens defects:
Vignette Removal
Compensates for a lens defect that causes the edges, especially the corners, of an image to be darker than the center.
Geometric Distortion
Compensates for barrel, pincushion, or fisheye distortion.
Note:Geometric Distortion will try to take into account the radical distortion to improve the result of the alignment, except with fish eye lens; when fish eye metadata is detected, Geometric Distortion will align the images for fish eye
After auto-aligning, you can use Edit > Free Transform to fine tune the alignment or make tonal adjustments to even out exposure differences between layers, then combine the layers into one composite image.
For a video on using Photoshop's alignment tools and automatic features to create panoramas, see Create a panoramic photo.