The Resize feature works differently depending on your plan and the complexity of the background layer in your design. Sometimes, this can be a little confusing, so we've created this article to help.

If your design doesn't resize as expected:

Check your plan.

If you are on the free plan, the Resize feature will only resize the canvas of your design. You need to be on the Pro or Business plan to get the AI to redraw your design so that it fits the canvas.

If you are on the Pro or Business plan, Resize works differently, depending on the background layer of your design (see step 2).
Edit your design and look at the Background layer.

If your background layer is empty, transparent, or is a single color, it is a "simple" background. The Resize feature will only resize the canvas of your design. For an example, see "Resize for simple backgrounds" below.

If your background layer is complex, for example, contains the background of a photo, Resize will use AI. The AI will redraw your image so that it fits the canvas. For an example, see "Resize for complex backgrounds" below.

Resize for simple backgrounds

Let's look at what happens if your design has a background layer that is empty, transparent, or a single color. For this example, let's say you have an image that you created with Photoroom's AI Image feature. Notice that the entire image is on the foreground layer and the background layer is empty.

A Photoroom design showing a photo of a woman scuba diving. The entire image is on the Product layer. The Background layer is empty.

You decide to Resize the design and you set the new size to be Landscape. As the design has no background layer, Photoroom resizes the design canvas, but the image layer remains the same size. This gives you a transparent area on the canvas, like this:

The canvas size of the design is now landscape. The photo of the woman scuba diving has not changed size or shape, and so there is a blank area to the right of the canvas.

That's how Resize works with any design that has an empty, single color, or transparent background. Photoroom will resize the canvas but not the image.

Tip: If you have an AI image and it has an empty background layer, you can still resize the entire image. The trick is to export your AI image and then reimport it as a new design. Let Photoroom remove the background when it imports the image and then choose the Original template to restore the background. This will give your AI image content on the background layer and the foreground layer. When you resize it, the AI will extend the image to fit the canvas.

Resize for complex backgrounds

If your design has a complex background layer, the Resize feature will use AI to extend the image to fit the canvas*.

*As long as you are on the Pro or Business plan.

For example, let's say you import a photo. During the import, Photoroom removes the background, but you choose the Original template to restore it.

A photo of a woman scuba diving has been imported into Photoroom. Photoroom has removed the background and there is an option to restore it.

That gives you a design that has two layers, and the background layer is complex (it has images on it).

Photoroom design showing the scuba diving woman on the foreground layer. The sea and coral reef are on the background layer.

You decide to Resize the design and you set the new size to be Landscape. As the design has a complex background layer, Photoroom uses AI to extend your image. The image resizes to fill the canvas area, like this:

The design has been resized to landscape. AI has added extra background to the photo so that the image fills the canvas.

Notice how the AI has added extra background to make the photo fit the landscape-sized canvas.

This is how Resize works when you have a design that has a complex background layer.