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I'm a dev working with some .PSDs given to me by our designer. We use Zeplin, a fancy tool that can give us a dev head start, but requires the designer to have created an artboard to export. Unfortunately, our designer did not use artboards while creating these PSDs. I'm OK in photoshop (CC 2015) but am running into trouble keeping the created artboard the same size as the original canvas.

My goal is to create an artboard the same size as the canvas delivered by our designer. When I select all layer groups and choose 'New Artboard from Layers' from the context menu, the artboard expands to include all layers that are positioned off-canvas. These layers include images and shapes. If I manually punch in the desired artboard size in pixels, I can't choose where to 'anchor' the artboard and have to manually line everything up.

Although this flow works, I'd really like to be able to do this faster. Is there a way to create an artboard the size of and in the same position of the current selection?

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7 Answers 7

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Try this:

  1. Select all of the layers.
  2. From the drop-down to the right of the layers panel, select New Group from Layers. This will place all of the layers within one group folder.
  3. Make a selection of the canvas by using the shortcut ⌘+A (Mac) or CTRL+A (PC)
  4. Add a mask to the group using the selection
  5. Now select the group folder, go to the drop-down to the right of the layer panel again.
  6. Select Artboard from Group.
  7. Your grouped folder should now be an artboard.
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I figured out a good solution to this issue.

Once you've created your master group of layers within an artboard, select the Artboard tool and at the top where there is a gear icon called "Set Artboard Behaviors".

At the bottom choose "Shrinkwrap Canvas on Save" and that should automatically confine the canvas size to the artboard size in the PSD once you save the document.

This is for single artboard PSDs, (at least that's how I tested it)

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I was struggling with this, but found a quick, lazy solution:

Create a new layer on the canvas at the top of your layers, fill with white. Select that layer and create Artboard from that layers. Then once that's done, delete the layer. You should have a new Artboard that the same size/location as your canvas was previously.

Make sure you place your white fill layer at the top of your layers and outside of any groups, otherwise it seems to muddle your layer structure. Apart from that, seems to work fine!

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@user58281 You are correct that it doesn't automatically retain the original canvas size. I discovered a fairly painless fix.

First, note your canvas size (in pixels, etc.), then follow the 5 steps in the answer above.

Then, when you click on the newly-created artboard in your layers palette, go to the Properties dialog box or window.

Enter the width and height based on your canvas size, and set the X and Y values to "0". Your artboard should now clip exactly where your original canvas was.

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A good way to resize the artboard is: after steps 1 to 5, and written down the size of your canvas, go to the artboard tool on the pull down menu (right above the little magnifying glass on the left, where the tools are).

When you have the artboard ICON selected, the width and height of the artboard will show up on the top of the screen, enter the numbers you wrote down. You can change from pixel to inch in: Edit - Preferences - Units & rulers.

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I know it's a year later, but the solution is:

  1. Create a new layer, make sure it's in front of all others.
  2. Select it in the Layers palette
  3. Choose Artboard from Layers from the flyout.
  4. Click OK.
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Why are the answers so complicated? You need to make a selection to the size of the artboard before ungrouping it, so you can crop the canvas to the same size afterwards.

1. CMD+A (it should create a selection to the size of the artboard)

2. Select the artboard and press CMD+Shift+G (it should get rid of the artboard)

3. Go to Image > Crop (it should crop the canvas to the size of the selection which was the size of the artboard)

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