Film Strip Photo Collage in Photoshop - Part 2
Learn Photoshop with Photo Effects Tutorials at Photoshop Essentials.com
Summary: In the first of this two-part Photoshop tutorial, we created a film strip shape to use as a photo frame. In this second part of the tutorial, we'll use multiple copies of that film strip to create our photo collage!
Written by Steve Patterson
Exclusively for Photoshop Essentials.com.
Part of our complete collection of Photo Effects tutorials.
In part one of this two-part Photoshop tutorial, we learned how Photoshop's shape tools made it easy to draw a simple film strip which we can then use as a photo frame, and we saved the film strip as a separate Photoshop document so we can re-use it any time we want without having to redraw it. In this part of the tutorial, we'll use multiple copies of that film strip to create a photo collage!
This part of the tutorial assumes that you've already completed the first part and you have your film strip ready to go, so if you haven't yet done so, be sure to work through the first part of the tutorial before continuing on.
Here's the photo collage design we'll be creating. Depending on the photos you're using and the dimensions of the document you're working with, you may want to position things differently, but once you know how to add multiple copies of the film strip to a document, how to position and rotate them inside the document and how to add photos inside the film strips (all of which is very easy to do), you'll be able to create any layout you need:
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Let's get started!
Step 1: Create A New Photoshop Document
Let's begin as we did in part one by creating a new Photoshop document. This will become our main photo collage document. Go up to the File menu at the top of the screen and choose New, or for a faster way, press Ctrl+N (Win) / Command+N (Mac) on your keyboard:
This brings up Photoshop's New Document dialog box. I'm going to go with a standard frame size of 8 x 10 for my photo collage, and I want it to appear in landscape orientation, so I'll enter a value of 10 inches for the Width and 8 inches for the Height (make sure you select inches for the measurement type and not pixels), and since I want to be able to print my final result later and have it appear nice and sharp, I'll enter 300 pixels/inch for the Resolution value. Finally, I'll set the Background Contents option at the bottom to White so my document appears with a solid white background:
Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box. The new document appears on your screen.
Step 2: Open Your Main Photo
Next, open the photo you want to use as the main image in the collage. Here's the photo I'll be using:
You should now have two separate document windows open on your screen. The main photo collage document appears in one, and the photo you just opened appears in the other.
Step 3: Copy And Paste The Image Into The Photo Collage Document
We need to add this photo to our photo collage document that we created in step 1, and we can do that simply by copying and pasting it. First, press Ctrl+A (Win) / Command+A (Mac) on your keyboard to select the entire image. You'll see a selection outline appear around the edges of the image in the document window. With the image selected, press Ctrl+C (Win) / Command+C (Mac) to copy the image temporarily to your computer's memory.
Switch over to your photo collage document by clicking anywhere inside its document window, then press Ctrl+V (Win) / Command+V (Mac) to paste the photo into the document. In my case, my photo is larger than the 8 x 10 document I created, so only part of the photo appears visible inside the document window. We'll fix that in a moment:
If we look in the Layers panel now, we can see that the photo has been added on its own layer (which Photoshop has automatically named "Layer 1") above the white-filled Background layer:
You can close out of the photo's original document window at this point. All we need open is the main photo collage document.
Step 4: Use Free Transform To Resize And Reposition The Photo
Since my photo is currently too big to fit inside my photo collage document, I'll need to resize it. I also need to reposition the image so that the wedding couple appears more on the left side of the document, leaving room for my film strips on the right. I can resize and reposition the image at the same time using Photoshop's Free Transform command. Go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Free Transform, or press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to select it with the keyboard shortcut:
This brings up the Free Transform box and handles around the image. Unfortunately, since the edges of my photo extend out beyond the visible area of the document, I can't see the Free Transform handles, which makes it a bit difficult to do anything. If you're having the same problem, go up to the View menu at the top of the screen and choose the Fit on Screen command, or press Ctrl+0 (Win) / Command+0 (Mac) for the keyboard shortcut:
This tells Photoshop to expand the size of the document window so that everything fits inside of it. Even though the actual viewable area of the document doesn't change and much of the photo remains hidden from view, we can now easily access the Free Transform handles in the corners of the photo. To resize the image, hold down your Shift key, which will constrain the aspect ratio of the photo as you resize it, then click on a handle (the little square) in one of the corners of the photo and, while still holding down your mouse button, drag it in towards the center of the photo. I'm going to drag the handle in the bottom right corner inward to make my photo smaller:
To move the image if needed, click anywhere inside the photo, keep your mouse button held down, and drag the image around inside the document. I'm going to drag the wedding couple over towards the left side of the document so I'll have room on the right to add my film strips. Leave somewhere between one quarter and one third of the document on the right for the film strips:
Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the changes and exit out of the Free Transform command. Here's my document after resizing and moving the photo towards the left. Notice how some of the white background is now visible along the right side of the document after moving the image:
We're going to blend the right edge of the photo in with the white background using a layer mask and the Gradient Tool next!
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