How to Photoshop an Interior Design Elevation

How to Photoshop an
Interior Design Elevation
A step-by-step guide to producing professional rendered elevations from a line drawing.

A rendered elevation is one of the most powerful communication tools in a designer’s toolkit. It takes a
technical line drawing and transforms it into something a client can actually see themselves in — real
materials, real colours, real scale. Done well, a Photoshop elevation is faster to produce than a 3D
render and more legible than a floor plan.
Most students either avoid rendering elevations because they find Photoshop intimidating, or produce
them without understanding why certain techniques work and others do not. This guide walks you
through the entire process from setting up your file to the final export, with the principles behind each
step explained so you can adapt them to any project.