The Easy Way to Open or Add Images in Photoshop

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Photoshop has official ways to open or import images, like the Open button on the Home Screen for opening an image as a new document, or the Place Embedded and Load Files into Stack commands for importing images as layers into an existing document.

But the easiest and fastest way to open or add images is to simply drag and drop them from your computer’s operating system (using Windows Explorer or the Mac Finder) directly into Photoshop.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to drag and drop images to:

• Open an image as a new Photoshop document
• Add an image as a layer to an existing document
• Import multiple images as layers in Photoshop

Which Photoshop version do I need?

I'm using Photoshop 2024 but any recent version will work.

Let's get started!

Download this tutorial as a print-ready PDF!

Drag and drop to open an image in Photoshop

To open an image from Photoshop’s Home Screen, the official way is to:

• Click the Open button.
• Navigate to your image and select it, then
• Click Open.

But the faster way is to drag your image from Windows Explorer, or Finder on a Mac, and drop it directly onto the Home Screen.

In this example, I’m dragging and dropping an image onto the Home Screen from Windows Explorer on a PC.

The image instantly opens in a new Photoshop document when you release your mouse button.

If you disabled Photoshop’s Home Screen, and no document is open, you can drag and drop the image into the blank area of the interface and it will open in a new document.

Drag and drop to add an image as a layer in Photoshop

The official way to add an image as a layer to an existing Photoshop document is to:

• Open the File menu.
• Choose the Place Embedded command.
• Navigate to your image and select it, then
• Click Place.

But the faster way is to drag your image from Windows Explorer or the Mac Finder and drop it directly into the document.

Here I’m dragging and dropping my second image onto the first image.

Photoshop adds the image and places it on a new layer.

When placing an image, either with the Place Embedded command or by dragging and dropping it, Photoshop first opens Free Transform so you can resize or reposition the image if needed.

Click the check mark in the Options Bar to close Free Transform and add the image to the document.

Drag and drop to import multiple images as layers

Finally, to import multiple images as layers into your Photoshop document, the official way is to:

• Open the File menu, choose Scripts and then Load Files into Stack.
• Click Browse to navigate to your images.
• Select the images you want to import, then
• Click OK.

But the fastest way to import images as layers is to select the images you want to import in Windows Explorer or the Mac Finder and then (you guessed it) drag and drop them into your document.

Here I’m selecting my third and fourth images in Windows Explorer.

Then I’ll drag and drop them into the document.

When importing multiple images, Photoshop will pause after each image is imported so you can resize or reposition it using Free Transform.

You’ll need to click the check mark in the Options Bar repeatedly to proceed through the images until they have all been added.

Once all your images are in the document, they appear on individual layers in the Layers panel.

And there we have it! That’s how to quickly open or import images just by dragging and dropping them into Photoshop.

Related tutorials:

• How to hide Photoshop's Home Screen
• Hide Photoshop with Screen Modes and interface tricks
• How to save your own adjustment layer presets

All of my Photoshop tutorials are available to download as PDFs.