Photo Into A Collage Of Polaroids

Turn A Photo Into A Collage Of Polaroids In Photoshop

In this Photoshop Photo Effects tutorial, we're going to learn how to take a single photograph and turn it into a collage of polaroids, with each polaroid containing a small section of the overall image. You can use this effect with lots of different types of images, whether it's a photo of one person or several people. It's great for photos of family or friends, vacation photos, or even as a creative effect for wedding photography.
This is a very easy photo collage effect to create, and as we'll see later in the tutorial, much of the work is simply repeating the same few steps over and over again until you're happy with the results.

Here's the image that I'll be working with in this Photoshop tutorial:

The original image.

And here's what the image will look like when we're done:

The final result.

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Let's get started!

Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer

The first thing we need to do for this effect is duplicate our Background layer. With our image open in Photoshop, we can see in the Layers palette that we currently have just one layer, the Background layer, which contains our original image:

The Layers palette in Photoshop showing the original Background layer.

To quickly duplicate the layer, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Photoshop creates a copy of the Background layer for us, names it "Layer 1", and places it above our Background layer in the Layers palette:

The Layers palette now showing the copy of our Background layer above the original.

Step 2: Add A New Blank Layer Between The Two Layers

Next, we need to add a new blank layer between our Background layer and the copy of it that we just created. Currently the copy is selected in the Layers palette (we can tell the layer is selected because it's highlighted in blue). Normally when we add a new layer, Photoshop places the new layer above the layer that's currently selected, but we want our new layer below "Layer 1", not above it. To tell Photoshop to place the new layer below "Layer 1", hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key and then click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Hold down "Alt" (Win) / "Option" (Mac) and click on the "New Layer" icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

Photoshop adds a new blank layer named "Layer 2" between "Layer 1" and the original Background layer:

Photoshop adds the new blank layer between the Background layer and "Layer 1".

Step 3: Fill The New Layer With Black

We're going to use black as the background for our effect, so let's reset our Foreground and Background colors if needed by pressing D on your keyboard. This sets black as your Foreground color and white as your Background color, as we can see in the Foreground and Background color swatches near the bottom of the Tools palette:

Press "D" to reset Photoshop's Foreground and Background colors to black and white if needed.

Now with black as our Foreground color and the new blank layer selected in the Layers palette, let's fill the new layer with black using the keyboard shortcut Alt+Backspace (Win) / Option+Delete (Mac). Nothing will appear to have happened to the image itself, and that's because "Layer 1", which contains a copy of our original image, is blocking "Layer 2" from view. But if we look at Layer 2's thumbnail in the Layers palette, we can see that we've filled the layer with black: