Step 7: Draw A Diagonal Selection Through The Center Of The Square

Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the Tools panel. By default, it's hiding behind the standard Lasso Tool, so click on the Lasso Tool, then keep holding your mouse button down until a fly-out menu appears. Choose the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the menu:

With the Polygonal Lasso Tool selected, click below and to the left of the bottom left corner of the square to set a starting point for the selection, then click above and to the right of the top right corner of the square. This draws a diagonal line through the square's center. Click above and to the left of the top left corner of the square, then back on the original point below and to the left of the square to complete the selection:

Step 8: Delete The Selected Area

Once again press Backspace (Win) / Delete (Mac) to delete the selected area of the square. Then press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) to remove the selection outline:

Step 9: Select The Remaining Part Of The Square

Hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key and click directly on Layer 1's preview thumbnail in the Layers panel:

This instantly loads a selection outline around the contents of the layer, which in our case is the remaining part of the square:

Step 10: Contract The Selection Outline

Just as we did earlier, we need to make this new selection outline smaller. Rather than using Transform Selection though, go up to the Select menu, choose Modify, and then choose Contract:

When the Contract Selection dialog box appears, enter 8 pixels (which will contract the edges of the selection outline by 8 pixels), then click OK to exit out of the dialog box:

The selection outline now appears smaller inside the shape. We're going to copy this smaller area to a new layer:

Step 11: Copy The Selection To A New Layer

Go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose New, then choose Layer via Copy:

You can also press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Either way copies the selected area to a new layer which Photoshop names "Layer 2":

Step 12: Add A Bevel And Emboss Layer Style

The basic shapes for our photo mount are in place, so let's give them a little detail and definition. With Layer 2 selected, click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

Choose Bevel and Emboss from the list of layer styles that appears:

This opens Photoshop's Layer Style dialog box set to the Bevel and Emboss options in the middle column. Change the Style option to Pillow Emboss, then set the Size to 3 px and the Soften amount to 5 px:

Click OK when you're done to close out of the dialog box. The smaller shape now has some subtle highlights around the edges as if it's embedded within the larger shape:

New! Download our Photoshop tutorials as convenient, print-ready PDFs!

Go to page: 1 | 2 | 3