Quick Photo Border Effect
Article ID: KB101726
Need a last minute Do-It-Yourself Christmas card? Make a
quick collage of photos in a Photoshop document and print
them out yourself or have a local photo service create the
photos for you.
First, create a document that is the right size. For
example, if you want to print the photos out in 4x6 format,
you'll want to go to File > New and create a document that
is 6 inches wide, 4 inches high, and 300 dpi (for good print
quality).
Now, open the high-resolution photos that you want to use
in your collage in Photoshop. For each photo, resize the
photo so that it will fit within your document by going to
Image > Image Size and making sure that the Document Size
is the same size or smaller than your
document. If not, change the Document Size to be the same
size (if it is smaller -- don't make it bigger! That will
cause the photo to lose quality.) Type Ctrl-A to create a
selection of the entire photo, then type Ctrl-C to copy. Go
to your blank document and type Ctrl-V to paste the photo
into a new layer. Repeat until your have all of your photos
in the document, each in its own layer. Close your original
photo without saving it!
Screenshot of the three photos in separate layers
Right-click each layer name in the Layers palette and
choose "Group into New Smart Object." This will allow you to
play with the size and positioning of the photo without
losing quality.
For each layer, type Ctrl-T to transform the image. Hold
the Shift key and drag on one of the corner handles to
resize the image. (The Shift key keeps the image from
being distorted.) Click and drag inside the bounding box to
move the image around on your canvas. Move your
cursor outside the bounding box, click, and drag to
rotate the image and place it at an angle. Double-click
inside the bounding box to commit your
transformation. Repeat for each picture.
You can continue to type Ctrl-T to transform each image
until the layout works for you. Rearrange the layers in the
Layer Palette if you want to change the way that the photos
stack on top of each other.
Select each layer and go to Layer > Layer Style > Stroke.
Click on the color patch to change the stroke to white.
Change the Position to "Inside." Increase the size while
looking at the document preview (I used about 24 pixels).
Now, click on the words "Drop Shadow" on the menu in the
left column. Play with the Distance and Size sliders until
you find settings that work for you (my Distance was 13px
and the Size was 27 px).
In the Layers palette, you'll see an "f" icon on that
layer. Hold down the Alt key, then click on the "f," drag,
and drop on top of one of the other layers. This will
duplicate the effect for the new layer. Repeat to duplicate
the effect for all the other layers.
Add some text (I put mine behind the photos for a layered
effect). At this point, you can print directly from your
computer or go to File > Save As, save as a .jpg, and upload
the .jpg to your choice of photo center!
Authors and Contributors:
Corrie Haffly
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