New Document
Open a new Photoshop document 600 x 600 px. This works best with a square document.
Insert a new blank layer.
Rename it ‘Shapes’.
Guide Layout
Go to the View menu and choose New Guide Layout.
In the window that opens, make sure “Preview” is checked and then do the following settings…
- Columns: set to 3,
Gutter should be 20 px. - Rows: first check the box, then set to 3
- Margins: check the box, then set them all to 40 px.
Say OK and you should have this…
Select areas
Select the Rectangle Marquee Tool.
Click and drag from the top left corner of top-left square down to the bottom right corner of the square directly below it.
When you let go, you will have a dotted outline of your selection.
Go to the Options Bar for the tool and click on the Add to Selection button.
Then draw out the following areas…
Fill with black
Make sure the shape layer is selected/active.
Fill the selection with black. Go to Edit> Fill (or SHIFT+F5).
Your layers should look like this…
Clear Guides
Hide the guides. Go to View > Clear Guides.
Also deselect (CTRL+D) so you don’t have the dotted outlined areas anymore.
Drop Shadow
Add layer style Drop Shadow.
Change the settings as follows:
- Angle: 135 (so it looks like the light is coming from upper left)
- Distance and Size: about 10
Photo
Zoom out with your view so you can see a good area around your canvas.
You can find your own photo (that’s at least 600×600) or you can copy the photo below into your document.
CTRL+T to transform – make sure it’s fitting the canvas, no empty gaps. If your photo is really large, you can go to View>Fit on Screen.
[Enter] to apply the transformation.
Hold ALT and hover between the photo and shape layers until you see the cursor look like this…
Then click to turn it into a clipping mask. Your layers should look like this…
… and your document now should look like this…
You can reposition and resize your photo using CTRL+T.
In this photo example, I am not showing all of the photo, but resizing and positioning it so it best shows the Eiffel Tower.
