How to Add a Clipping Mask in Photoshop, Photopea or PS Elements

The clipping mask tool in Photoshop is a wonderful little piece of magic that quickly and easily allows you to insert any image into a specific shape layer, while still being able to move or edit your image.

PHOTOSHOP INSTRUCTIONS

For this tutorial I'll be using one of my photo board templates, but you can apply this process to any type of design or file in Photoshop. I'll cover the the same process for Photopea and PS Elements below.

To start, open your Photoshop file and the image you want to insert into it, or download my sample files to follow along.

With both files open, select the PS file by clicking on it and take note of the layers palette in the lower right corner. Select the layer for the shape you want to insert your image into. In this example we will insert a photo into the top left corner of the photo board, so I've selected shape 1 with my cursor.

Now go to your image and drag and drop it into the PS file.

Your canvas should now look like the image below. You'll see that the photo appears in the layers palette right above shape 1 where we want to clip it to.

With your cursor hovering on the photo layer in the layers palette, right click the layer to bring up the shortcuts menu. You'll see an option called "Create Clipping Mask". Click this and watch the magic!

You'll also find the clipping command from the top menu options under LAYER>Create Clipping Mask.

All that is left to do now is adjust the photo into the exact position you want it in the photo box. You can simply drag it with your mouse until it's positioned and/or sized just right.

Now repeat for all other boxes on the photo board!

PHOTOPEA INSTRUCTIONS

The process in Photopea works very much the exact same way. The only difference here is that when opening your image to insert into the PS file you will use the FILE>Open and Place command instead, which opens the image right in your file rather than opening it separately and dragging and dropping it in. Otherwise everything else will look and work exactly the same.

PS ELEMENTS INSTRUCTIONS

Again, this is going to work almost exactly the same way as above. You will open and place your image in the PS file but here you will use a keyboard shortcut to apply the clipping mask - CTRL G does the magic! You'll also find the clipping command in the top menu options under LAYER>Create Clipping Mask.

And that's it! It's just as easy as that and you can do this with as many layers as you want.