How to Add a TV Image To An Empty TV Screen Using Adobe Photoshop
In real estate photography, you are bound to encounter multiple interiors with objects that reflect anything in front of them. This could be a mirror, a newly polished cabinet, or a TV screen.
While getting the angle for your images can easily fix mirror reflections, and maybe even maximize them to your advantage by highlighting the view outside, a reflecting TV monitor is a different story.
Because you want your listing to look as realistic, neat, and relatable as possible, you may want to tweak what your potential buyers see on the listing’s TV screen. This may seem like a minute detail that can easily go unnoticed, but it is in the little details that make your images more detailed, curated, and professional looking.
As simple and straightforward as replacing the image on your TV screen is, it can be quite the challenge to make it look seamless and realistic. You can find our handy guide below on how to get the job done right in Adobe Photoshop, as well as the many free tutorials available through the software.
How do I Photoshop my TV screen?
Adding or replacing an image on your TV screen not only requires you to carefully manipulate your photo to fit the frame, but you must also make it look like it’s being shown on the screen in real life. This means that apart from stitching in the image, you must add interlaced scan lines or a CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor effect.
These are the classic TV lines you may vividly remember being more visible when watching your favorite show in the past. Interlaced scan lines can really give your real estate image more character to its overall vibe.
Want to learn how to Photoshop TV screens? Here are 5 quick steps:
Step 1: Create The Document
To have the interlaced scan lines precisely fill up the screen, you will first need to create a pattern.
Open up a new document on Adobe Photoshop with the following settings:
- Width: 1 Pixels
- Height: 2 Pixels
- Resolution: 72 Pixels per Inch
- Color Mode: RGB 8 bit
- Background Contents: White
If you want the lines to be thicker, you can increase the height. For now, we’ll stick with this size.
Step 2: Paint The Image
Have your foreground color set to black, and then select the pencil tool. Start painting on the top half of the image.
Step 3: Define The Pattern
Click on Edit and then Define Pattern.
A pop up will appear wherein you can fill up the Pattern Name. Once you hit OK, your pattern will be automatically saved to your Adobe Photoshop library, which you can use at any given time for other projects.
You may repeat these first 3 steps while changing the height during document setup each time, so that you can add multiple patterns to your library.
Step 4: Apply The Pattern
Now that you have the pattern, you can easily apply it on the relevant images.
Open the image or images you want to add the lines to in Adobe Photoshop. Once that is set, create a new blank layer right above the image. Press Shift and Delete (Mac) or Shift and Backspace (Windows) to open up the fill dialog box.
When the fill dialog box appears, choose the pattern you made under the “Customer Pattern” drop down tab and hit OK.
Step 5: Display The Pattern
By now, you should only be able to see the pattern layer. It is time to let the image below fade through by means of a blending mode.
You can try out different blending modes to see which works best with your image, and we recommend any of the following:
- Overlay
- Soft Light
- Screen
Once you have your blending mode set, you can play around with the opacity to make it all seamlessly work together.
BONUS: Extra Step
If you want the effect to look like the lines only appear on the dark areas of the image, there is a quick way to do so!
Click fx on the layers panel where you would usually add a layer style and then choose blending options. This opens up a window to Advanced Blending Options with a dialog box filled with details.
First, set your blend mode to overlay. Next, at the very bottom, slide the White slider to the left to hide the pattern in your highlights. Hold down the Alt or Option key to split the triangle and create a smoother blend.
That’s all there is to it!
How to Add a TV Image to an Empty TV Screen Using Adobe Photoshop
Now that you have your image all set and prepped with interlaced scan lines like it came straight out of a TV screen, let’s talk about how you can actually fit it into the TV on your image. Here are 5 easy steps to get the job done:
Step 1: Align The Images
Still by using Adobe Photoshop, open your listing’s image and drag the edited photo to the layer on top of it.
Scale the edited image to have it roughly the same dimensions as the main TV screen. Make sure not to distort the image, simply resize its proportions as close as possible.
Step 2: Adjust The Proportions
Now, we adjust the proportions. Go to Edit and select Transform. From the options, click on Wrap and choose Inflate. Set the Bend adjustment to 50%.
Step 3: Add In Filters
With your proportions set similar to the TV’s shape, add in a layer of Gaussian Blur, and then adjust the brightness and the contrast. The variables for each of these varies on your image but trial and error should work fine.
Step 4: Mask The Layer
Now it’s time to make both your layer styles merge as one. First, trace the screen of your TV using the polygonal lasso tool and then add a Feather Selection to make it less rigid. You can find this option under Select, Modify, and then Feather. Setting the Feather to 1 or 2 should be enough.
Next, you want to have both your images match in angle. You can do so by clicking the edited image, selecting Edit and then Transform in the drop down menu. Hit Distort and slowly proportion them together in the same angle.
Once that is in place, click Cmd / Ctrl + select both the new screen layer and the edited image layer. Select Layer Mask, and then send the Blend Mode to Overlay.
Adjust the opacity of the merged layer so it blends seamlessly with your TV screen and look more like a reflection.
Step 5: Add The Color Burn Effect
When you are happy with the result, you want to duplicate the image, and then move that second photo a few pixels to the right.
Change the blend mode of the latter to Color Burn and adjust the opacity once again. You should now have a perfectly reflected image on your TV screen.
How Do You Replace A TV in Photoshop?
If you want to replace the entire television using Adobe Photoshop, you first have to remove the current one off your original image. There are four simple photo editing tools built into the software to help you first remove the TV or any other object out of your image, but we will give you a detailed guide on our most recommended method: Content Aware Fill Tool
This method utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to identify how to best cover up the missing pixels once you delete the object. This is most suitable for scenes wherein the surrounding colors and textures are consistent with one another.
First, you have to create a duplicate background layer to edit non-destructively. Next, while on the new layer, select the areas or objects you want to replace using the lasso tool. Simply draw around the entire area, or in small batches to ensure a more precise result.
Next, hit Edit and then select Fill. Choose Content Aware from the drop down menu next to Contents. The tool will automatically analyze the image and fill in the gap.
Getting more precise results with Content Aware
Sometimes if the image is a little less consistent, you may need more control over the pixels filling in the space and you can do this by enabling Content Aware Fill Workspace. First select an area with the lasso tool, click Edit and then this time, select Content Aware Fill (instead of Fill).
When the workspace opens up, you can see your original image with a green overlay on the sections that Photoshop will be using as a sample. There will also be an image on the right hand side showing you a preview of the image once the sample area will replace the missing pixels.
To edit these, you can find a few tools on the far left:
Sampling brush – This allows you to select the sample areas for the pixels that will be utilized to fill in the gaps / replace the object.
It features a minus sign in the middle so you may brush over areas that you do not want to be part of your sample section. Similarly, you can add sample pixels by holding Alt/Option to show the plus sign, and brush over the relevant areas.
Lasso tool – This allows you to make selections within the image that need replacement.
Hand tool – This allows you to move the image around.
Zoom tool – This magnifies specific areas of the image so you may edit with more precision.
On the far right, you can find these additional settings:
Sampling Area Overlay – This section gives you full control over how the overlay displays itself. You can adjust its opacity, color, and what it depicts by selecting either sampling the area (default) or the excluded area.
Sampling Area Options – This section helps you set the sampling area where you want the source pixels to be copied from in order to fill the missing content.
Auto – This option automatically selects content that AI finds similar to the surrounding fill area
Rectangular – This option selects a rectangular area around the fill area.
Custom – This option allows you to manually select the sampling area.
Sample All Layers – This tick box enables Photoshop to sample source pixels by utilizing all the layers within the document.
Fill Settings – This section allows you to give Photoshop more information regarding the replacement pixels to be used
Color Adaptation – Color adaptation works when filling content that contains texture or differences in color. You can opt to set it to None, Default, High, or Very High depending on how much texture and color is in your image.
Rotation Adaptation – This setting is designed for curved objects within the image, and allows Photoshop to fill content in a curved pattern. Similarly, you can set it to None, Low, Medium, High, or Full.
Scale – This setting corrects content consisting of repeating patters of different sizes.
Mirror – This setting reflects the content, which sometimes works best when the photo has a horizontal symmetry.
Output Settings – This section is for how you want to save your edited image. You can choose either on the Current Layer, New Layer, or Duplicate Layer.
Remember to always select Apply when making changes to save the last step.
Once you have the settings just the way you want it, select OK and you may now add in your new TV. Ensure that it is in PNG format so that you can easily drag and drop to the image.
Simple adjust the brightness, contrast, and other basic tools to help it blend in more.
Other Recommended Methods
Other ways to remove the original TV on Photoshop are:
- Clone Stamp Tool
- Spot Healing Brush
- Patch Tool
You’re All Set!
The above guidelines may be a little tricky for first timers but you will soon find that it is quite easy to edit TVs and their reflections for your real estate images!
