Adding the background image to Blender

With a photo selected, your next step is to import that image into Blender to use as a background image. Your steps would be:

1. In the upper right-hand corner, you will want to click the + icon to display what is known as the Properties Shelf. Alternatively, you can type N on the keyboard:

Toggling the display of the Properties Shelf.

1. Scroll down to the Background Images section and click the black triangle icon to display it.
2. Check the Background Images checkbox. Click the Add Image button:

Telling Blender to add a new background image.

1. Click the Open button. A popup window allows you to browse the folder structure on your computer.
2. Browse to and select your photo, and click Open Image:

Selecting the desired image from your computer.

1. The Axis setting allows us to define which preset viewpoint you would like the image visible for. In our case, set the Axis to Top. Our background image will only be displayed when we are perfectly looking down on our object from above:

Blender lets you select which Axis you want the background image for.

At this point, the background image has been added. You may be unnerved to see that nothing has changed. This is normal.