Photoshop Tip: Pasting into a Selection in Photoshop

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You can use Photoshop’s Paste Into command to paste one image into a specific area of a different image. Here’s how:

Start by making a selection of the area where you want the pasted pixels to appear.

Photograph of television with screen selected

Then copy the image you want to paste.

Photograph of cheese board selected in Photoshop

Next, choose Edit > Paste Special > Paste Into (or use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Shift+Ctrl+V for Windows or Option+Shift+Command+V for Mac).

Photoshop Paste Into menu

A new layer with a layer mask will be added to the image. Note that the layer and the mask are not linked at this point, so you can immediately move the pasted pixels inside the mask by dragging with the Move tool. You can also change the position of the mask itself by selecting the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers panel and then dragging with the Move tool. To lock both the mask and layer in place, make sure you have the layer thumbnail selected, then choose Lock All.

Photoshop Layers panel next to layer mask image

Editor in Chief of CreativePro. Instructor at LinkedIn Learning with courses on InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, and Affinity Publisher.
  • Lars Thambert says:

    Is there a way to easily preserve the sense of the bulging, reflective glass, especially the highlights in the two upper corners? Some kind of blending mode? (I tried a longer way; copying the TV screen after it was selected and pasting it in a new layer, then pasting the picture into the TV as described and lastly, erasing everything from the separated screen layer but the two corners with a gentle eraser and finally taking down the opacity of this layer a bit)

    • Mike Rankin says:

      Hi Lars- I’d make a new layer with just the original screen pixels and put it on top of the others, then double click on that layer to open the Layer Style dialog box. Experiment with Overlay, Hard Light, and Soft Light blend modes. These will emphasize highlights and shadows while removing midtones. Instead of erasing (which is time-consuming and almost never looks really right), try using the Blend if sliders in that same dialog box. Just remember that when the TV is on it’s not going to show much in terms of reflected light, so use a very low opacity for subtle highlights. Good luck!

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