Photographs are the best way to preserve our sweetest memories forever. Every Photograph has many remembering and sentiments attached to it. We hold some Photographs close to our heart for they make us remember the best moments of our life.
If you have any such Photograph with you, why not make it special and frame it so that it remains in front of your eyes forever. Here we will learn how to convert an image into a collage. We have used Polaroid photo frame look which will make your Photograph look stunning. You can click on the images to view larger version.
- Skill: Easy
- Time: 1 hour(s)
- Software(s): Adobe Photoshop CS4
If you like this article, you might be interested in some of our other articles on Photoshop.
Open Image in Photoshop.
Duplicate the original layer (Ctrl+J).
Add a new layer between the original layer and the duplicate layer (created in step 2) and fill it with black color.
Create a new layer above the black layer.Select your Marquee tool (M) and make a selection.
Fill your selection with black color (you can fill it with any color) in the new layer created in the last step.Note that no change has occurred as the layer is below our duplicate layer (Don’t worry about this as it will appear soon enough).
Select the duplicate layer and go to menu bar> Layer> Create clipping MaskThis will shift your layer to right and show a downward arrow next to it(With this tool we basically mask the area that is just below our layer).
To make a boundary for our image, create a new layer just above our black layer.Make a selection such that it’s just a bit bigger than our masked area and fill it with white color.I made the base a little thicker so as to give it a Polaroid photo frame look.
Create a shadow to your frame by editing the layer style (Double click on your frame layer) of your frame layer Here I used Drop Shadow:Angle: 140 degreesDistance: 4 pixelsSpread: 19%Size 24 pixelsYou won’t see any changes due to the black layer present below.
Link your layers (White frame layer and black mask layer) by selecting both the layers and clicking the link layer button at the bottom left side of your layer palette.
Now select your frame layer and rotate and move it to any place with the free transform tool (Ctrl+T).Note that only our mask and frame are moving and not the image.
Now group the three layers (White Frame Layer, Black mask layer and the top image layer) into one group (Ctrl + G).Name this group Polaroid.
Now Duplicate your Polaroid group and place the frame and mask layer to a different position and rotate them to any other angle, to give it collage feel.
Arrange effectively to give it a nice collage look.For this tutorial I took 17 groupsYou can add more if you want.
It could be quite challenging to find a particular layer in so many layers, for that you can use the auto select layer control available on top left hand corner of your screen when you are using the select tool (V). This will help you find and edit the layers at a later stage.