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How to Create Mini Polaroids in Photoshop

Posted by narrowband - 09/05/07 at 12:05:43 am

Today I’m gonna spend some time to share with you how to produce something like this:

This was a special request by Eunice, who was clearly hungry for more tricks after reading my previous Photoshop entry (by the way, she turns 23 today, so Happy Birthday Eunice!). She showed me an example on Ladyshanice’s blog (I was told that she was some beauty queen… which I’m not surprised), and she said that she wanted to produce something similar. To be honest, I hadn’t done this before but it shouldn’t be too difficult. Let’s try it, step-by-step:

Note: Here I shall assume you already have 9 photos, and all of them have been resized to 175 x 200 pixels. (Read my entry on How to Resize Multiple Photos in Photoshop).

Step 1: Open all the 9 photos in Photoshop.

Step 2: Create a new canvas by going to File -> New… (alternatively, hit CTRL+N). Define the Width to be 175 pixels, and Height to be 200 pixels. Click OK.

Step 3: Use the Move Tool to drag one of the photos into the newly-created canvas.

The photo will snap itself perfectly into place. We shall call this photo “Layer 1″. You may close the original photo now as it is no longer needed.

Step 4: Repeat Step 3 to drag the next photo over. We shall call this photo “Layer 2″.

Step 5: Repeat Step 3 again until all 9 photos have been dragged over (9 layers).

By now you should have closed all the original photos as they are all no longer needed. You can toggle the visibility of Layer 9 by clicking the ‘eye’ icon.

Step 6: Next, we insert a greyish frame around the photo to create the polaroid effect. Do this by first increasing the canvas size: Image -> Canvas Size… Set the Width to 200 pixels, and Height to 300 pixels. Click OK.

Step 7: Crop away the upper portion of the frame by using the Crop Tool. Normally polaroids look like that right?

Step 8: Use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill the entire frame with a light-grey colour (#DEDEDE should be a good pick).

Now, we are done creating the polaroids. Let’s put them all together in one big canvas.

Step 9: Create a new canvas by going to File -> New… (alternatively, hit CTRL+N). Define the Width to be about 700 pixels, and Height about 800 pixels. Click OK.

Step 10: Now we are ready to drag our polaroids over to the big canvas, one by one. We first merge the Background layer with Layer 1. To do this, toggle the visibility of the other layers (make them invisible), and link Layer 1 with the Background layer, like this:

The little ‘chain’ icon in Layer 1 indicates its linkage with the Background layer.

Step 11: Now, with the two layers linked, press CTRL+E to merge them into one.

Step 12: Next, use the Move Tool to drag the polaroid over to the big canvas.

Step 13: On the big canvas we’ll tilt the polaroid a little bit for a nice effect. To do this, select the Marquee Tool (which is just next to the Move Tool on the first row), and then right-click on the polaroid that has just been dragged over. Select Free Transform.

You can tilt the polaroid as much as you like. Now let’s drag the rest of the polaroids over.

Step 14: Toggle the visibility of Layer 2 and link it with the Background layer.

Step 15: Merge the layers by pressing CTRL+E. Then, repeat Step 12 to drag it over to the big canvas.

Step 16: Repeat Step 13 to tilt the polaroid.

During Free Transforming, the polaroids will appear jittery but once you apply the changes, it will smoothen itself out.

Step 17: Repeat Steps 14, 15, and 16 for Layers 3 onwards. Here’s how the big canvas should look like with all the 9 polaroids together:

Haha, I know, it doesn’t look right. You can actually determine which polaroid should overlap which, by rearranging the order of the Layers. Simply click and drag a layer up or down, like this:

I’ve also readjusted the positions of each the polaroids. Just select the layer you wish to move, and use the the arrow keys on your keyboard to move them up, down, left or right.

Step 18: Finally, Drop Shadows by adding a Layer Style onto any layer.

Step 19: Then we need to apply the style onto the rest of the layers. To do this, first link up all the layers.

Then, right-click on the layer with the style (in the screenshot above, it’s Layer 4), and select Copy Layer Style. After that, right-click again to select Paste Layer Style to Linked and voila, you’re done!

My method may not be the most efficient, mind you. But it’s logically simple enough. Heh. It’s my first try, and I must stress that there is an infinite many ways to produce the same result, maybe even better. For me, I’m pretty much a results-oriented kinda person, so anything goes as long as it works!

Footnote: I’d like to acknowledge a Photoshop guru by the name of Nic, whom I met once upon a time in PJ. I had the opportunity to pick up some tricks from him many moons ago, some of which I’ve used here.

Related Entries:

• How to Resize Multiple Photos in Photoshop
• February Babies' Dinner at Marche
• How to Create a CSS Photo Gallery
• How to Bulk-Rename Your Filenames

22 Comments »

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1. Nice share..u are becoming a PSD magician here!

   Comment by Jian — May 9, 2007 #

2. hey, thanks david!!! :D
   but…so many steps -__-”

   Comment by eunice — May 9, 2007 #

3. You got me addicted to the batch resizing…Haha! Now…this is another cool stuff! Thanks wey…

   More to come? ;;)

   Comment by Chiaw Yin — May 9, 2007 #

4. nice.. that’s cool. u combined 2 tuts into 1. :P

   hmm.. are u a right to left person or it’s just me thinking that way? :P

   Comment by CincauHangus — May 9, 2007 #

5. Good stuff bro!

   Comment by voch — May 9, 2007 #

6. Jian – PSD? Photoshop Document? Ehe. I don’t save my PSDs ;p I save them as jpegs or gifs directly.

   Eunice – Actually that’s because I need to write them down in words. If I could show you in person you’ll see that the steps are quite simple and repetitive!

   Chiaw Yin – Sure, when I have an idea ;p. Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable providing these stuff because I’m not really a PS expert – The real experts might drop by my site and say ‘Wth there’s a much easier way to do that!’… lol.

   Cincau – What makes you think that way?!!

   Victor – Thanks for checking it out man. It’s just for fun!

   Comment by narrowband — May 9, 2007 #

7. psst : on a totally unrelated note – Shanice was one of the finalists for Miss Malaysia/World 2005 but went home with Miss Crowning Glory/Miss Photogenic.

   her social nature reminds me of Pei Kheng. (;

   Comment by moyzie — May 9, 2007 #

8. Ohh, really… Pardon my ignorance, heh. Don’t really keep abreast with developments in that area.. but yeah, she’s hot!

   Peikz? Haha… I see! ;p

   Comment by narrowband — May 9, 2007 #

9. very good..very good….becoming expert…next link in ur blog might lead to “Photoshop tricks” @ Photoshop Blog

   Comment by wonderboy — May 10, 2007 #

10. Nice! :)

    As for me, I just made a polaroid with Photoshop and saved them as PSD so I could just drag my photo into it whenever I need them. :D

    Comment by cindy — May 10, 2007 #

11. Murali – Probably… ;)

    Cindy – Yea, I saw your blog and photoblog… polaroids aplenty! The PSD’s actually very handy if you use them often… I don’t always do polaroids ;D. I like the way you create yours, very nice – the dimensions and everything!

    Comment by narrowband — May 10, 2007 #

12. its all too hard!

    Comment by Wuching — May 10, 2007 #

13. Wah cool cool cool! I have 1 question…how to put watermark in photo? I always type the name of my site…very tiring. :P

    Comment by Che-Cheh — May 10, 2007 #

14. Ahh~ wanted to use a shortform for Photoshop files, i’m sorry for the confusion & irrelevancy here, but when u start to guess wat was the PSD standing for, i tot of Pretty Short Di**, better not be too clear here.. :) Kidding!!

    Comment by Jian — May 11, 2007 #

15. Wuching – No it’s not. Give it a try! :)

    Che-cheh – You can refer to my How to Resize Multiple Photos in Photoshop. It teaches you how to do repetitive tasks (including watermarking) so it’s not so tiring :)

    Jian – Ah, point noted!

    Comment by narrowband — May 12, 2007 #

16. That’s a great tutorial. Thanks.

    Comment by Adam — May 12, 2007 #

17. Try it and see if my tutorial is useful! :D

    Comment by narrowband — May 12, 2007 #

18. Tutor David, interested to be FCM tutor d ar?

    Comment by Elyn — May 14, 2007 #

19. No lar, I can’t :p I’m under-qualified!

    Comment by narrowband — May 15, 2007 #

20. nice pics..haha…thx 4 the tip :D

    Comment by BLuEaPpLE — May 18, 2007 #

21. ehh… so how do you put a background pic behind all those Polaroids made?

    Comment by verbatimcries — August 19, 2007 #

22. That’s easy. Just drag your desired background pic (let’s call it DBP for short) into your workspace. Then, rearrange the layers so that your DBP’s layer is just right on top of the Background layer.

    If you take my example above, you should place the DBP’s layer between layers Background and Layer 9.

    Good luck!

    Comment by narrowband — August 19, 2007 #

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