Quick Tip: Create a Set of Scattered Polaroids
Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop CS2+
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Estimated Completion Time: 5 - 10 Minutes
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Creating a set of scattered Polaroids in perspective might be easier than you think. Today, we will demonstrate the process in this quick tip tutorial. Let’s get started!
Resources Used
The following resources were used during the production of this tutorial.
Step 1
Create a new document, 2500 x 1850 px and paste the wood texture onto the canvas. If you decide to use another texture make sure that your canvas is the same size as your texture. Rename the texture layer "WoodBG."
Step 2
Create a new layer, using the rectangle marquee tool, draw a rectangle with the dimensions 400 x 480 px and fill it with white. Rename this layer "Polaroid.Bg."
Step 3
Double click “Polaroid.Bg” and apply the following layer styles:
Step 4
Using the Rectangle tool draw a black rectangle inside the white base as shown, rename this layer “Polaroid.Pic.”
Step 5
Now comes the fun part, put these layers into a folder and name it “P1” then duplicate the folder and move the new Polaroid around and rotate it (Cmd/Ctrl + T and hover over the corner and rotate). Try not to rescale the Polaroid as they are all the same size. Repeat this until you are happy and have a nice spread of Polaroid’s (I generally use about 6-7).
Step 6
Now that we have our Polaroid’s laid out, we need to import our image. This can be anything you want. For this example, I will be using a flower. Import the image into Photoshop and hide the layer. Here comes the tricky bit, we need to select all the black on the canvas (apart from the black in the picture which is why you hid it). Go to Select > Colour Range and click on the black part of one of your Polaroids. This will create a matte and select all the black on the canvas as seen below. Then press ok.
Step 7
Next, click on the Photo layer and press Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + I to invert your current selection and press delete followed by Cmd/Ctrl + D to deselect. Unhide the layer and now you should have something which looks like the following:
Step 8 (Optional)
To make the 3D effect select all your layers (Click on the top layer hold down shift and click on the bottom layer) then press Cmd/Ctrl + T and right click inside the canvas and press perspective, drag out the handles at the bottom like the following:
Step 9
To remove the band at the bottom simply scale up the image (Cmd/Ctrl + T), the final step is to hide all of your black box layers in the folders, simply go through each one and hide them.
Final Image
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Hmm.. this is really not new.
really?? this is what we get? Wow
I give up … there was a time when I considered to become a member ….
*sigh*
Notice how it says “Quick Tip”. That means that is is merely a brief tutorial that can be achieved in a few minutes, not an e-tome.
This is a pretty cool tutorial. I thought it would be more complicated, but it turned out to be quite simple. Thanks for sharing.
Nice Job. I recently did a video tutorial on how to create a vintage grunge Polaroid. Everybody likes polaroids
This is a little too beginner for me… the only real revelation here for beginners is how to do the perspective distortion…
Really nice work
Easy to follow, and great outcome myself!
pretty simple
At least it teaches beginners some fundamental photoshop tricks. You can’t assume every member here doesn’t find this valuable.
Wow, I’m sorry, but those are really poorly done. You know, I barely have time to get my own work done each week (I’m a web dev and graphic designer, 10+ years), but some of these tutorials are so poor as of late that I might consider writing a couple myself. What kind of cash does tuts+ lay out for these? Maybe that’s the problem? Maybe they’re not laying out enough scratch for tutorials to attract people who’ve been doing this kind of stuff for a decade or more? I mean seriously, this tutorial and the end result look like a 15 year old in his parents basement did it. (Note: I pay for tuts+ subscription every month, so I have a right to be displeased by shoddy material being put up).
Shane, we would love your input. Here is some information regarding authoring a tutorial of your own http://psd.tutsplus.com/about/write-a-tutorial/.
Thanks Grant, I’ll take a look.
Not all the users are experts. Maybe this is for the beginner
Shane, Fair point maybe if you pay for monthly subsciption but as stated at the top of this tutorial it says “Difficulty: Beginner. Estimated Completion Time: 5 – 10 Minutes”. We aren’t all incredible “web dev and graphic designer’s” like you think you are. I happened to find this tutorial very useful as a “QUICK TIP” as it is titled.
Maybe you should stop spending so much time being such an ‘amazing’ “web dev and graphic designer” and take 2 seconds to actually read the info first.
Thanks.
Check out the way I did polaroids, published in Advanced Photoshop Mag.
http://www.neda.carbonmade.com (under Photomanips)
very good
thanks Peter
actually the thickness of the white line of the frame around the edges is a bit more bigger..
http://www.google.co.in/images?hl=en&safe=off&q=polaroid&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi
check it out.. there.. do some research before u do something.. thanks btw..
Great tutorial for the beginners just learning about Photoshop and its many amazing features.
looool , U are right
nice simple advice. Thanks
No structure for the frame and no id or lable? Lots of limitations you could easily eliminate by using a scan of a real polaroid. By doing that you could spend time on color corrections to get a better and more realistic result. And you still can call it a quick tutorial.
Great Quick Tut. Well done
Badest tutorial from PSDTuts…
Sorry…
Could definitely be improved through use of clipping mask instead of “cutting” the flower pic down to size. It gives you flexibility to adjust the image positioning.
One thing that’s a real pain in here, is that all the tutorials are missing half of the shortcuts…
easy and beatiful, thanks for your ideas
I’m confused on why a rectangular marquee was used? I believe using the Rectangle Shape Tool and then switching to “Subtract from Shape” to punch out the “photograph” portion of it would’ve made more sense. The user could then save it as a custom shape and reuse it over and over again.
I also agree wholeheartedly with whoever said to use a clipping mask. Would make much more sense.
Easy and sweet ! ,
Thnx
Awsome…very easy tutorial and nice one to follow..!!
Hi !
Nice Tuts , Simple , Beautiful , EASY , anyone can try to make like this
Very nice, simple, easy… EXCELENT!!
Tks…
That was a lot easier/quicker than I thought! I’m playing about with different textures and coming up with some pretty cool finished pieces!
how do you put the layers in a folder?
Nice Tuts , Simple , Beautiful , EASY ,
Sorry but I’m no PS expert, but can you add more then one image in the “photos”?
it’s nice, good creation…
You lost at step 7 “Next, click on the Photo layer and press Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + I to invert your current selection and press delete followed by Cmd/Ctrl + D to deselect. Unhide the layer and now you should have something which looks like the following:”
Nop .. didnt have result you got, in fact nothing happend. Not sure what i did wrong, did you mean by pressing delete pressing button “del”?
when i try deleting the inverse selected of theh rectangle marque it saus cannot edit the smart objects directly ! can somebody help ?
This was really fun and all for me being a beginner and just now learning the importance’s of photo shop and being a photographer-in-training, this here was really fun to do. I would recommend this to anyone out in the world whom are very bored and have nothing better to do. Try it, it will surely make time fly!
Awesome fun
Very nice tutorial and very good for the beginners.
I like it.
you lost me at step 7, nothing’s happening when i unhide the layer.
Not a bad idea, something cute and fun to make. People who are stuck on step 7. You have to move the photo (the flower) down and under the floor, when you have selected all the black you have to click on the wooden floor layer and then press delete. Then your photo will show through.
Not sure why it was so hard to explain that in the tut. Anywho…not a terrible tut. just lacks description