Written by Steve Patterson. In this Photoshop tutorial, we'll learn how to create the illusion that a single photo is being displayed as a series of vertical panels. It may look complicated, but as we'll see, it's actually a very easy effect to create, with many of the steps being simple repetition. I'll be using Photoshop CS5 here but any recent version of Photoshop will work.

Here's the image I'll be using for this tutorial:

And here's what the final "vertical photo panels" effect will look like:

Let's get started!

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Step 1: Add A White Solid Color Fill Layer

With your image newly opened in Photoshop, click on the New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. It's the icon that looks like a circle split diagonally between black and white:

Select Solid Color from the top of the list of fill and adjustment layers that appears:

Photoshop will pop open the Color Picker so we can select which color we want to fill the layer with. Choose white, either by clicking in the top left corner of the large color selection box on the left or by entering 255 for the R, G and B options near the bottom center of the dialog box:

Click OK when you're done to close out of the Color Picker. The document will now be filled with solid white, which will serve as the background for our effect:

If we look in the Layers panel, we see the new Solid Color fill layer, which Photoshop has named Color Fill 1, sitting above the original image on the Background layer:

Step 2: Duplicate The Background Layer

Select the Background layer by clicking on it in the Layers panel:

With the Background layer selected, go up to the Layer menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen, choose New, then choose Layer via Copy. Or, for a faster way to access the same command, press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) on your keyboard:

A copy of the Background layer, appropriately named Background copy, is added directly above the original:

Step 3: Move The Background Copy Layer Above The Solid Color Fill Layer

We need to move the Background copy layer above the Solid Color fill layer, and the fastest and easiest way to do that is with a keyboard shortcut. Press Ctrl+right bracket ( ] ) (Win) / Command+right bracket ( ] ) (Mac) on your keyboard. This will jump the currently selected layer (the Background copy layer) up over the layer directly above it (the Color Fill 1 layer), placing the Background copy layer at the top of the layer stack:

Step 4: Select The Rectangle Tool

Select the Rectangle Tool from the Tools panel:

Step 5: Select The Shapes Option

With the Rectangle Tool selected, click on the Shapes option in the Options Bar along the top of the screen. It's the left icon in a row of three icons near the far left of the Options Bar:

Step 6: Draw The First Vertical Panel

With the Rectangle Tool in hand and the Shapes option selected, click inside the document and drag out your first vertical panel. We're going to add our panels from left to right across the image, so draw this first panel on the far left of the area you want to display. For example, in my case, I'm going to drag out my first panel on the left side of the man's face (don't worry about the color of the panel):

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Step 7: Rotate The Panel Slightly With Free Transform

To add a bit more visual interest to the effect, let's rotate some of the panels so they don't all appear straight up and down. Press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to quickly access Photoshop's Free Transform command, which places the Free Transform bounding box and handles around the panel. Click anywhere outside the panel and, with your mouse button still held down, drag with your mouse to rotate it. Don't rotate it too far - a slight angle is all we need. You can also move the panel to reposition it if you need to by clicking anywhere inside of it and, again with your mouse button still held down, dragging the panel around with your mouse. Here, I'm rotating the panel slightly counterclockwise. When you're done, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) on your keyboard to accept the change and exit out of the Free Transform command::

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