Digital Signage - Converting Portrait to Landscape

Overview

This article will detail the standard procedure for creating landscape (1920x1080) content using pre-existing portrait-oriented (1080x1920) digital assets. As a reminder, all newly created content for the purposes of digital signage should be formatted in 1920x1080. This guide is solely used for the demonstration on how to convert a portrait digital asset into landscape orientation. Any content not in this format will be removed from digital signage displays until the formatting is correct.

Preliminary Steps:

Download Adobe Photoshop from Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. As a reminder, you do not need administrative privileges to download Photoshop. Do NOT download Photoshop from the web or any other sources as a license key is attached to your @umd.edu credentials.
Have your content ready to be reformatted. .png, .jpg, and .pdf are acceptable. .png is preferred. You cannot reformat a .ppt, .xlxs, etc.!

Getting Started - How to Create a Photoshop Composition

Open Photoshop. Once here, select New File

A pop-up window should appear. This is the start of your composition.

In the area denoted by the Purple Box above, rename your project. This composition can be reused to format more than one portrait-oriented graphic. A general name such as "Graphic Landscape Re-orientation" would suffice.
In the area denoted by the Red Box (MOST IMPORTANT), change the dropdown to Pixels and the Width to 1920 with the Height changed to 1080. Leave all other settings alone and select Create. You now have a composition in landscape mode ready to be the background of the graphic you will later import.

Generative AI: How to Quickly Create a Background

For our graphics to look aesthetic and pleasing to viewers, an appropriate background should be generated. Photoshop has native AI features built into the platform that are easy to use and available for all users. To get started select the Rectangular Marquee Tool

From here, highlight the entire composition, being sure not to miss any areas of the layer. Generative Fill should automatically appear. This is where you can input prompts to manipulate the background.

Generative Fill should automatically populate as an option for the selected area. Once selected, you can type in a prompt for what you are looking for.

Once you are prompted, you can now use Generative Fill to fill the area selected by the Marquee tool. Like other AI platforms, you can be as specific or vague as you'd like. See below for examples of prompts used with Generative Fill.

"Solid background with the color light blue."

"Sierra Nevada mountain range from birds eye view on a partly cloudy day."

"University of Maryland Xfinity Center on gameday."

As expected, the more granular or specific descriptions get, the more inaccurate the AI generation could be. As this is for graphic backgrounds, we recommend (and foresee) simple prompts being the only use case for this tool in Photoshop. If you accidentally click out of the layer and need to modify your generative ai prompt, simply click back on the layer for the prompt to reappear.

The layer for generative AI is distinctly different than normal layers. Look for the layer that has an icon with 2 stars combined with the background that you currently have selected in the composition.

*Tip: Each generative fill prompt that is entered outputs 3 different variations for you to choose from. They can be found on the right-side menu under properties. See below for the variations that were created for "Solid background with light blue" and "Purple ombre with a simple pattern".

Conversion: Importing Portrait Graphics to the Composition

Now that the background is in place, we can now import our graphic to the composition.

Select File followed by Place Embedded...

A separate pop-up should appear. Select the file of the graphic you would like to import into the composition. REMINDER: Only .png, .jpg, and .pdf will work. In the second pop-up, Open As Smart Object, leave all settings alone. Below you can find what each selection should be before selecting OK.

Leave all default settings alone on this second pop-up

Now that the graphic is in the composition, drag the layer so that it is centered. Photoshop automatically detects the guidelines to ensure the graphic is balanced in the middle. If you need to move the layer to center the graphic, select the lock icon on the layer. This will allow you to move the graphic to your liking.

Without layer lock; this will allow you to move the graphic

In the scenario that you are not satisfied with how the background looks underneath the graphic, you can continue to create generative AI background. Select the layer that contains the generative ai layer and input prompts until you find one to your liking.

A purple background does not generally go with orange or red in the foreground. Use Generative AI to change it to something easier to view.

Final Steps: Exporting your Graphic for Use

Now you have a nicely formatted 1920x1080 graphic ready to be displayed for the purposes of digital signage. When you are ready to export the composition, follow the steps below.

Select File -> Export -> Quick Export as PNG

Rename your file to something appropriate and easy to locate. You are now ready to upload the graphic into the CMS system (i.e YoDeck, FanConnect) for digital signage deployment.