Step 9: Select The Top Layer's Mask

With our square brush ready to go, click on the top layer's mask thumbnail in the Layers panel. This way, we'll be painting on the layer mask itself, not on the photo. A white highlight box will appear around the thumbnail letting you know the mask is selected:

Step 10: Paint Over The Main Areas Of The Photo

Make sure the Opacity value for the top layer is set to 100%, which it should be by default:

Also, before you start painting, press the letter D on your keyboard to quickly make sure your Foreground and Background colors are set to their defaults of white (Foreground color) and black (Background color). Photoshop uses the Foreground color as the color of the brush, and we want to be sure we're painting on the layer mask with white so we can reveal the photo as we paint:

With the square brush in hand, the layer opacity set to 100% and your Foreground color set to white, begin painting over just the main, important areas of your photo. Of course, since all we can see at the moment is the solid white background, you'll need to take a "best guess" at where these important areas are. If you don't get it right the first time, simply press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo your brush stroke, then try again.

As you paint, you'll see the photo appearing through a series of randomly-sized and scattered squares, creating the first stages of our pixel effect:

If you're not happy with the size of your square brush, press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo the brush stroke (or press Ctrl+Alt+Z (Win) / Command+Option+Z (Mac) repeatedly to undo multiple brush strokes), then resize your brush using the left and right bracket keys on your keyboard. Each time you press the left bracket key ( [ ), you'll make the brush a bit smaller, while the right bracket key ( ] ) will make it larger. Begin painting again once you're happy with the brush size.

Continue painting over the main part(s) of your image. Here's my document so far. Normally, I would make my brush size a bit smaller than what I'm using here, which would give me smaller squares, but smaller squares could be hard to see in the screenshots so for the sake of this tutorial, I'm leaving the brush set to its original 24 pixel size:

Step 11: Select The Layer Mask On The Next Layer

Click on the mask thumbnail for the layer directly below the top layer. Again, a white highlight border will appear around the thumbnail letting you know the layer mask is selected:

Step 12: Lower The Layer's Opacity To 70%

Lower the Opacity value for this layer down to around 70%:

Step 13: Paint Around The Initial Area To Reveal More Of The Photo

With the layer's opacity lowered, paint around the initial area to reveal more of the photo. Since the layer's opacity is set to only 70%, this new area will appear a bit faded compared to the previous area we painted over:

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Step 14: Select The Next Layer's Mask

Click on the mask thumbnail for the third layer from the top:

Step 15: Lower The Layer's Opacity To 35%

Lower the opacity for this third layer down to around 35%:

Step 16: Paint To Reveal More Of The Photo

Continue painting around the previous area to reveal more of the photo. This new area will appear even more faded than the last thanks to the 35% opacity value:

Step 17: Select The Next Layer's Mask

Finally, click on the original Layer 1's mask thumbnail to select it:

Step 18: Lower The Layer's Opacity To 10%

Lower the opacity of Layer 1 all the way down to 10% or so:

Step 19: Paint In The Remaining Areas Of The Photo

Paint inside the remaining white areas around the image to reveal the rest of it. This last part will appear very faint with the layer's opacity at only 10%:

Step 20: Change The Background Color (Optional)

At this point, the effect is complete, but if you want to change the background color to something other than white, just double-click on the color swatch for the Solid Color fill layer in the Layers panel:

This will re-open the Color Picker. You can select a new color from the Color Picker, but what I like to do is sample a color directly from the image itself. To do that, with the Color Picker still open, move your mouse cursor over the image. You'll see your cursor temporarily change into the Eyedropper Tool icon. Click on an area of the image that contains the color you want for your background. I'll click on an area in the woman's forehead:

Click OK when you're done to close out of the Color Picker. The Solid Color fill layer instantly updates to the newly sampled color, giving us our new background color for the effect:

And there we have it!

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