Who does not recognise Photoshop? It is extremely dependable and flexible. You are able to export, import, and edit your PNG files in various ways. But indeed, you will have to master the steps to avoid getting lost in their numerous features. Are you curious? Read this complete guide to master editing PNG files properly!
Easy Steps to Edit Your PNG Files
You may be confused If this is your first-time using Photoshop or rarely engage with any editing app. No need to be worried anymore because these steps will guide you from the beginning until the end of the PNG file editing process.
1. Import a PNG File
Before going into this step, make sure your PNG files are organised into folders. This will be helpful so that the files are easily located when being asked by Photoshop later on. There are two ways to import your PNG file into Photoshop which are through keyboard shortcut and manually through the toolbar.
If you choose the former way, you may press the Control button on your keyboard along with the letter O. If you use a MacBook, press the Command button + letter O. This shortcut will open up a window that will help you to locate your PNG file on your computer.
After you have found the file you want, proceed clicking “Open” to finish importing the file into Photoshop. The editing software will immediately create a new document based on the dimension of the PNG file. If using shortcuts confuses you, the latter way is the one for you.
You simply need to find “File” and click “Open” in the drop menu. Automatically, you will see a window that will ask which PNG file you wish to use. After that, click “Open” to have the file imported into Photoshop.
2. Editing Your PNG File Time
This editing software provides plenty of ways to edit your image such as adjustment layers, brightening, blurring, darkening, and even adding text. If you do not know what those are, here is the thorough explanation on how to do them.
A. Adding an Adjustment Layer
One of the things you can do on editing your PNG file is by adding an adjustment layer. What is an adjustment layer? It is a feature that allows you to apply tonal and colour adjustments to your PNG without ruining the pixel values permanently. Let us take an example of creating a hue or saturation adjustment layer for better understanding.
After importing your PNG file, you may find “Layer” in the toolbar and drag down your cursor to “New Adjustment Layer” and select the “Hue/Saturation” option. Next, on the right sidebar of your Photoshop, click the ‘Adjustment’ panel and click the first icon of the second row.
That will guide you to the Hue/Saturation box or layer which you can name to distinguish one layer to another. Then, you may click ‘OK’. On the layers box, you will find an adjustment layer added just above the image later. This shows that you just made a new layer for editing hue/saturation of your PNG file.
B. Adjustment Properties
After successfully adding the layer, you may proceed by adjusting the properties. In the adjustment panel, you can see a lot of features of the hue/saturation adjustment which are preset, colour selector, hue, saturation and lightness. Preset provides pre-made templates.
In this feature, you are allowed to add fast colour adjustments. It is perfect for you who prefers everything quick or something automated. The second feature is the colour selector which is suitable if your PNG image consists of multiple colours. If you only want to adjust a certain colour, you may find colours from the drop-down menu.
If you want to change the colour appearance of your PNG, please do select the ‘Master’ option. The third one is Hue which aims to adjust the colours of your image. You need to drag the slider to change the colour of your liking. Next is Saturation. This feature is used to increase the richness of your image colours.
High saturation will result in a deep colour of image, whereas low saturation will become black and white. The last feature is lightness. As the name describes, this feature allows you to adjust the brightness of your image.
C. Adding a Layer Mask
On the Layers Panel, clicking on the ‘rectangle with a hole in the middle’ will lead you to create a layer mask. What is a Layer Mask? It is a feature that is used to remove effects or enable them again at your will. Let us take an example of editing your PNG by removing its original text.
First, you can select the brush tool through a shortcut on your keyboard by pressing ‘B’. After that, you can change the foreground into either black or white. ‘Black’ foreground will help you to mask out the content of your image and have it invisible, whereas white will make the content visible.
D. Making PNG Transparent
First of all, make sure you save the PSD file of your work for access to further changes, just in case. You can do it by heading to ‘File’ and click ‘Save As’ to name your project. After saving, proceed to find ‘Export’ under the ‘File’ menu as well.
On the export bar, you can change the image format to PNG which automatically changes your image background to become transparent. But mind that this step will only work on images whose white background has been removed.
E. Adding Your Own Text
Adding text to your PNG is fairly simple. You only need to select the ‘Type’ tool, then you can drag your cursor and click on your image to add a new piece of text. You can edit it as well if you accidentally make a mistake.
Ready Editing Your PNG Image?
Photoshop is the perfect software to edit your PNG file. Just follow the guide and also read some photography tips to enrich your knowledge about editing and photography in general.
