Photoshop Tutorials: Turn A Photo Into A Collage Of Squares

Step 8: Move The Layer Mask To A New Location To Create The Second Square

I'm going to grab my Move tool from the Tools palette:

I could also press V on my keyboard to select it. Then, in the Layers palette, I'm going to click on the duplicate layer's mask thumbnail to select it, making sure I have the mask selected and not the layer itself. The mask thumbnail will have a highlight box around it to indicate that it's selected:

Then, with the layer mask selected, I'm simply going to click inside the Document Window and drag the mask to a new location, which is going to create the second square. I'll drag it down and to the left so the top right corner is overlapping the bottom left corner of the original square:

I now have two squares, and if you look in the top right corner of the one I just created, you can see the white Outer Glow defining the edges of the square.

Step 9: Continue To Duplicate The Layer And Drag The Mask To Create More Squares

At this point, it's simply a matter of repeating the last two steps until the main areas of the image are visible inside the squares. So first you press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to duplicate the layer. Then, and this part's very important, click on the layer mask thumbnail of the newly created layer to make sure you have the mask selected, not the layer contents. If you try to drag the mask to create a new square and instead you see the image inside the square moving, you have the layer itself selected by mistake. In that case, press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo, then click on the layer mask thumbnail and try again.

Continue this process of duplicating the layer, selecting the mask, and dragging the mask to a new spot in the image until all the important areas of the image are showing. It's okay to overlap the squares, and don't be afraid to leave an occasional empty space between them either. It just adds to the effect.

I'm going to continue duplicating the layer and moving the mask until all four people in the photo are showing inside the squares. Here's my image after creating enough squares to bring the rest of the boy into the image:

After duplicating more layers and moving the masks around to create more squares, I've brought the boy's mom and younger brother into the effect:

Finally, I've added enough squares to bring all of the main areas of the photo into view. I've also made sure that all four people's faces are clearly visible in the photo and not being sliced up by the edges of any squares. That would just be wrong: