As professional photographers, one of our main jobs in knowing how to edit images in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom… but it’s almost impossible to know everything — especially when you’re first starting out. Photoshop can be extremely daunting to the newcomer. So what do you do when a client asks if you can extend the background of their photo?

Luckily, in the Age of Internet Learning, there are countless resources when it comes to tackling the ins and outs of these photo editing tools. One such resource is Aaron Nace with his popular YouTube Photoshop tutorial Channel PHLEARN.

In this video, Aaron shows us how to achieve the somewhat complicated task of extending your photo backgrounds in Adobe Photoshop. Check it out!

Extend Your Photo Backgrounds in Adobe Photoshop

In the video above, Aaron walks us through his process of taking a portrait with a pretty tight crop and extending the background.

“This is something we do super often,” Aaron says. “Especially when you’re trying to make, like, a portrait-type image. Maybe you want to put it up as a horizontal banner… or top of your Facebook profile — whatever you have.”

But Aaron says the process becomes bit tougher when you have a portrait taken with things like buildings or other elements of nature in the background. It becomes almost impossible to extend those types of photo backgrounds without having to find a similar image or having to paint an entire background…

Still, in the video above, the background Aaron is extending takes some work, but he’ll explain how to use simple tools — like the brush tool — to extend the backgrounds in the photos you capture.

He even takes it one step further and allows you to follow along with the exact image he’s using. You can download the image file HERE and be sure to visit PHLEARN.com for more incredible tutorial content from Aaron Nace!

Check out the tutorial video above and let us know what you think in the comments below!