As a newbie in the design business, you often face the need to change the appearance of an image or shape or change its direction (rotating or tilting) to give your work the desired look it deserves. If tilting is what you wish to do without having the slightest clue how to go about it, here is how to tilt your image at just the right angle.
A guideline on how to tilt an image in Photoshop
Example 1: Tilting an actual image/picture
Step 1: Opening an image
The first step to mastering tilting an image in Photoshop is to get an image ready for work. For that, proceed to Files, click Open to get re-directed to your desktop to choose any image; once selected, your work appears directly on your Photoshop canvas.
Step 2: Opened Image
Once you choose the right image at the desktop or any other file where your work is, the image chosen appears here on the Photoshop canvas, just like in the picture above. You can now proceed to work on your image as desired.
Step 3: Duplicate the background image
The next step to tilting an image on Photoshop is copying your background/original image on another layer. To achieve that, move your cursor to the Layer feature on the right side of the screen, click on Background, and press Ctrl + J. This process activates the creation of Layer 1, which is a duplicate of the background layer/copy.
Afterward, please proceed to the left side of your screen to pick the Rectangular Marquee tool; on it, press Ctrl + A to get the area around the image selected or highlighted.
Step 4: Transform the image – making the image editable
To commence editing on your image, you need to make it editable by transforming it. To do that, press Ctrl + T. Once done, the corners and some other edgy areas of the image become edit ready in any form for scaling, tilting, rotating, and so on.
Step 5: Tilt your image
Tilting the image is a piece of cake with Photoshop. To achieve that feat, go to one of the four edges/corners of the image and place your cursor close to the chosen edge. Once near the border, the cursor forms and shows a curve. Once it’s visible, left-click on the screen and use your mouse to move around, tilting your image to the direction you are moving the mouse.
The tilting is from the bottom right point/angle; tilting it upwards from that angle resulted in the image seen above.
Step 6: The tilted image
When you have your image tilted, simply press Enter on your keyboard to return the image to this way. In another manner, press Ctrl + D, or simply right click and click deselect.
Step 7: Background adjustments
From working on the top layer, or Layer 1, proceed to the layer menu and click on the background layer to select it. Once done, go to Adjustments and click on it. A drop-down menu appears for you to work it.
Step 8: Color adjustments
When you click on Adjustment, a drop-down menu appears with various options on what you can adjust; go straight to the point and select Solid color; this leads to a dialogue box.
Step 9: Color Adjustments
Once you select Solid color, the dialogue box pops up for you to work with a color scheme. From there, you can pick any color you desire for the background layer so that your background will not be the same as your top tilted layer image. For this demonstration, the color chosen for the filling is blue.
Step 10: Tilted image with a color-filled background
Once you finish filling the background layer with your desired color, the new image visible on your screen is that of a tilted top layer image with a filled blue background, as seen above.
Example 2: Tilting a rectangle
Step 1: Create a rectangle
Here is another example to follow-up with to further emphasize how tilting an image is done in Photoshop. Remove the initial impression on the filled background, and move to your shape tool. Create a rectangle (red), as seen above.
Step 2: Transform your shape
As done earlier, press Ctrl + T to transform your image, making it easy for any form of editing to take place.
Step 3: Tilt your image
With the activation of the transform feature, proceed to tilt your image by moving your cursor to any one of the shape’s edges and click Enter.
Step 4: A tilted rectangle with a blue filled background
After clicking on Enter, your tilted image is set for you to save in the desired format.
Conclusion
In Photoshop, editing an image comes in many ways, one of which is by tilting the image. The above steps explain tilting in the easiest way possible for you to try out so that when next you need your image with a little more style, why not just pitch it right.
