How To Create 3D Objects From Photos In Photoshop

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Warning: Adobe has removed 3D from Photoshop. The 3D workspace used in this tutorial began to be retired in Photoshop 22.5 (August 2021), and the legacy 3D feature set was removed completely in July 2024. You cannot follow these steps in current versions of Photoshop. This tutorial is kept as a record of how the technique worked. For 3D work today, Adobe points people to Substance 3D.

In this video, I will show you how to create 3D Objects from a photograph in Photoshop.

We’ll use two adobe stock images, and we’ll create a smartphone advertisement composition.

Bar Background Image:
https://stock.adobe.com/stock-photo/bar-in-a-night-club/80838657

Cell Phone Image:
https://stock.adobe.com/stock-photo/modern-mobile-phone/91187020

Also, stick around after that tutorial because I will take a minute to show you how you import 3D models into Sketchfab directly from Photoshop.

From Sketchfab, you can create a portfolio of your 3D models and also, embed them into your website or blog and interact with them in 3D space.

Check out the interactive 3D object below.

Phone Modeled in Photoshop
by JRfromPTC

Inspired by my good friend, graphics guru, Mark Heaps

3D objects, photoshop
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After: How To Create 3D Objects From Photos In Photoshop
Before: How To Create 3D Objects From Photos In Photoshop
Jesús Ramirez

About the author

Jesús Ramirez

Jesús Ramirez is a graphic designer and the founder of the Photoshop Training Channel, which he started in 2012 and has grown past two million YouTube subscribers. He has taught at Adobe MAX, Adobe Summit, and Photoshop World, teaches courses for CreativeLive and Pluralsight, and was one of five artists chosen for Adobe Stock's Make a Masterpiece campaign. His Photoshop templates shipped inside Photoshop CC 2018.

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21 Comments

  1. Very interesting tutorial. It would be nice if one could print out the tutorial for future reference.

  2. Nice, straight forward demonstration of the various 3D capabilities inside Photoshop, from UV maps to IBLs. Thanks, Jesús!

  3. Very nice tutorial!
    It just melted all the fear of approaching 3D workspace. Thank you!!

  4. Hi JR,
    This question is not related to this tut but I wanted to to get in touch with you and thought this would be the easiest way. I have already sent you my comment.
    I just received an email from Adobe Creative Cloud titled “Discover New Ways to Make Amazing Work Wherever You Are.” Open that page and scroll down to “Try Something New” and click. A page opens and on top you’ll see a a picture with a sort of marble background and a lucite box that contains some pictures. Could you please tell us how that is done particularly the lucite box. Also when you make 3D Postcards how do you orient them precisely in the same direction? Is there a readout box for it ? If you want me to I can send you a screen shot of the picture. Thank you

  5. I get as far as the creating the mask, then when I go to the 3d menu, everything is grayed out. can you help?

    1. Trish, does your computer meet the minimum requirements for 3D? Photoshop disables 3D if it does not.

  6. Hey, great video! I’ve watched it a million times! Do you have instructions for how you made the buttons? That would be AWESOME! It’s the last piece of my photoshop puzzle. Thanks in advance!

  7. Hey JR!

    Thanks for the awesome tutorial, do you have one on how you made those buttons? My 3D rending is complete except I can’t figure out how to make the buttons on the side of the phone where the extrusion material is. Thanks!

    1. Paige,

      I created a cube and just extended it and placed it accordingly. You will have to put both the phone and the cube in the same 3D scene. To do so, Press Ctrl E (Mac: Command E) Then move it around and scale it to match he phone. Then apply a material of course.

  8. Hey Jesus,

    Excellent tutorial as usual. However I have a problem and so a question : For some reason when I render the texture on the surface of the telephone it creates an image inside the rendering image (whom suppose to be the surface of the telephone). I could show you all this by email actually it would be easier to explain, but maybe you’re already familiar with this problem ?

  9. Wonderful tutorial; I learned a lot. Thank you. The one problem I ran into was the editing the IBL for the enviromental lighting. When I clicked on “Reveal All” nothing happened. The image of the background didn’t get bigger as shown in your tutorial.

    Thanks again,
    Terry

  10. Jesus,

    I’m trying to learn the Ps CC 2020 3D interface on my own from watching videos online. Yours, above, is one of the best I can follow so far – especially because I can use it as a (2D) photographer versus as an illustrator or designer. I was doing okay until I had to stop midway through the video last night. I saved a .psd of the work I’d created up until that point (I’m working with a watch and a desktop…). I can’t figure out how to get the 3D environment active without starting over (which I don’t want to do…). I can see all the layers that saved but not the ground plane, widgets, etc. Pls advise! Thx.

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