Retouching isn’t just about the subject of the images, sometimes, you may want or need to go the extra mile and change the background, too. In this article, we’ll go over how you can do that with Aftershoot.

Note: Please keep in mind that Aftershoot Background Retouching currently works best for headshots and portraits taken in a controlled environment, e.g., a studio. We’re continuously working on improving it and adding more features.

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First, create a new album, cull and edit it if you need to, and head to the Retouch tab.

Then, look at the top of the right-hand drawer and click on the Background tab.

Once you’re on this screen, you can choose between using existing backgrounds or uploading your own.

To change the existing background of an image, simply click on a new one in the right-hand dashboard and wait for Aftershoot to apply it.

Backgrounds in Aftershoot are essentially images, which means they can be manipulated to fit your needs better. You can do that with the controls in the lower part of the right-hand dashboard.

The first option you have is how a background fits in the image, with three choices – Center Fill, Center Fit, and Stretch Fill.

The second one is Scale, which you can adjust to change the size of the background you’re using. You can do that by clicking on the field and changing the numeric value by typing. Or you can do it by clicking and holding on the Scale field and moving your cursor from left to right.

The third option is Opacity. By modifying it, you can decide how solid or opaque the background you’re using is. You can adjust the same way as Scale.

Below these three options, you have the controls to flip the background image Horizontally or Vertically. All you have to do is click on one of the buttons until you reach the desired effect.

To the right of the flip buttons, you’ll find the Rotate Left and Rotate Right buttons, which allow you to rotate the image.

To the right of these controls, there’s a background placement tool. Click and drag the circle at the center of the tool, and it will move the background image accordingly.

Reverse the last change made to a background by using the CTRL/CMD+Z shortcut to undo it.

Once you’re done working with a background, you can apply it to multiple images at once. First, either hold the CTRL/CMD key and click on the images you want, or press the CTRL/CMD+A key combination to select all the images.

With that done, simply click on the Paste button in the lower right corner of the screen to apply the same background to all selected images.

In case you want to revert to the original background, click on the icon to the right of the Change Background title.

There are 7 background selections available on the main screen at all times. You can find more by clicking on the Explore More tile.

This will open a new drawer with all the backgrounds currently provided by Aftershoot. These backgrounds are stored on your system, so if you see a background with a symbol over it, just click on it once to download it.

First, click on the Your Uploads button in the right-hand drawer.

Then, browse your system and select the images you want to upload and use as backgrounds. Once you’re finished choosing, click on Import selected images.

The images will be displayed next to the Your uploads button, with the same name as the file you uploaded.

Currently, only images with JPEG and TIFF formats can be used as backgrounds, and there are no restraints on file size, resolution, or how many backgrounds you can upload.

If you uploaded more than one background, you can find all of them by clicking on Explore more. Click on My Uploads in the top part of the drawer and you will see all the backgrounds you uploaded.

We hope this article was useful. If you are still experiencing difficulties or have questions, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. It will be our pleasure to help you out!