How to: create a polaroid collage in Photoshop
I remember doing collages at school, when I was a kid. I liked cropping pictures, letters and patterns, and then sticking them all on a poster board to create a truly original piece of art. But times have changed and technology has evolved, which means I’ve replaced scissors and glue with virtual cropping tools and layers. So today, instead of a paper composition, we’re going to create a polaroid collage in Photoshop.
1. First of all, open the image, duplicate the background layer, add a new layer between the background and its copy and fill it with black.
2. Create a new layer on top of the black one and select what will be the content of your first polaroid with the Marquee tool (M). Fill in this selection with black too.
3. Now we’re going to create a clipping mask, so that the polaroid remains the only visible area of the original picture. Simply click on Layer 1 (the background copy) and go to Layer > Create Clipping Mask. You’ll get something like this in your layer palette:
4. Create a new layer on top of the black one and make a new selection around the previously selected area. This is going to be the polaroid’s characteristic white margin, so fill it in with white.
5. Add a Drop Shadow effect to this white border, tweaking the settings as shown:
6. Select the two layers that make up the polaroid (content and margin) at the same time by clicking on them while holding the Shift key. Now use the Transformation tool (Ctrl+T) to rotate the photo. Press Enter when done.
7. Now select all three layers (the two polaroid sections and the one with the clipping arrow) and press Ctrl+G. This will group them all in a separate folder, thus making layer management much easier.
8. Each group of layers makes up a complete polaroid, so now it’s time to duplicate them and obtain as many polaroids as you need to create the collage. Simply drag the group icon and drop it on the “New folder” button in the Layers palette to create a copy. Then select the two folders inside the group (the polaroid’s content and margin) and apply a transformation like in step 5.
9. Simply keep on duplicating the layer group and repeating the fifth step until you have enough polaroids to show your original image in a nice collage.
10. Here’s my final result, after creating 15 copies, flattening the image and adding some final shadows.
Dear Elena, I am writing again to compliment you on this series of ‘How To’in Photoshop. The step by step format using screenshots simplifies
Posted at 11:59 am on May 31st by Georgethe project and makes the student aware of how to use tools from the emense armoury in photoshop, many that we didn’t know were there.
I was looking recently for a ‘How to - Create a Resumé’,without success.
It made me think that your same format would enable a student that had
no prior understanding of Microsoft Office Word, to navigate through Tables and Fonts, to produce their own C.V.( with/without photograph)
If you decide to go with the idea please let me know.
Yours Faithfully
George Comerford
Hi George! Thanks for your kind comments
The thing is, I’m focused on developing step-by-step tutorials only for Photoshop at the moment, mainly because of the popularity of digital photography and the fact that this editor is quite difficult to use for novice users.
In any case thanks for your suggestion, we’ll take that into account.
Cheers,
Posted at 8:07 am on Jun 2nd by Elena SantosElena
i cannot multiple select? ive tried control click.
Posted at 2:40 pm on Aug 20th by aimeeive tried shift-click.
it will not work!?!?
help please?
Hi Aimee,
Multiple selection is only available from Photoshop CS3 onwards. If your copy of Photoshop is older than CS3 you won’t be able to make multiple selections.
Cheers,
Posted at 4:32 pm on Aug 20th by Elena SantosElena
Hi Elena,
When you started out, you selected only the statue of liberty portion. How did you get the collage to extend to the other parts of the picture? (i.e. the buildings, etc)? When i duplicate the folder and create a new transformation, it just adds a new collage for the little segment i created (in your case, the area of the statue of liberty). I want to do that for the entire picture. How do i do that?
Thanks so much.
Posted at 4:18 pm on Sep 17th by SarahSarah
Hi Sarah,
first of all, make sure you create the clipping mask on the appropriate layer (step 3) so that you get a masking effect. Then, once you’ve grouped the Polaroid layers, duplicate the whole group as explained on step 8.
Click on the new group you just created to open it, and select the two polaroid sections simultaneously (Ctrl+click on both on them). Press V to activate the Move tool and you’ll be able to drag the new polaroid all around the picture, showing only the area beneath.
In this way you can arrange multiple polaroids on the picture, each one of them showing a different area and eventually creating the collage.
Hope I made myself clear
Cheers,
Posted at 8:08 am on Sep 18th by Elena SantosElena
Thanks a Lot!
Posted at 2:16 pm on Sep 18th by e93