Safely Stretch My Image to Fit?

If you need to expand the edge areas of your image (maybe to make it fit a particular size, like a full-bleed to the edges on an 8½x11" paper size), you can use some Photoshop magic that will stretch out unimportant parts of your image (or even shrink them in), usually without stretching the important parts. Here’s how it works: Click on the layer you want to stretch, then go under the Edit menu and choose Content-Aware Scale. Now, literally, just grab a side or corner point and start dragging in the direction you want (as seen above), and it somehow figures out what’s important in the image and it tries to lock that part down—so, if you’re adjusting a landscape photo, it would just stretch the sky without pulling the mountains upward. It does a really amazing job, and it’s incredible how much you can often stretch without messing up your image. When you’re done, just hit Return (PC: Enter) to lock in your very smart stretching, thanks to Content-Aware Scale. One more thing: If there are people in your photo, once you choose Content-Aware Scale, but before you actually stretch the image, click on the Protect Skin Tones (the little person) icon up in the Options Bar. That helps it to know to look for people and not stretch them.