Dividing Photos
An interesting and simple technique to showcase
your photos is to divide them up. There are
several ways to go about this, but I am going to
show you a fairly simple way.
First, open the photo and background paper
that you wish to use.
Place your photo on the paper. (I suggest
you use copies to avoid accidentally damaging
the originals!) Ensure you have your ruler
option set ON. (This can be found in the View
option menu where you check it to turn it on or
off.)
Position your document using your slider so that
the top of the photograph is against the ruler
and position it as close to a whole number as
possible. From this you can roughly work out
the measurements you want for your divisions. I
have added a layer to mark where I wish to
divide up my photo, simply to make it easier to
see.
Select your square/rectangular marquee tool from
the menu, make sure you have selected your photo
layer and draw your selection to line up with
your first division mark.
Fig 1. First division selection.
Holding down your SHIFT key you can now make
your other selections, one after the other.
Make sure you leave a gap between each
selection. You will see marching ants around
each selection once you are finished. Now you
have a choice whether to cut or copy your
selections to another layer.
Fig 2. Selected divisions.
The easiest method is to go to your layer menu
and select New layer via copy. This will copy
all your selections onto a new layer. You can
then remove your photo layer or click the little
eye icon to make it invisible.
It is also possible to do this one selection at
a time if you prefer to have each division on a
separate layer to easily move them around as you
prefer. You can also add strokes to the outside
of the/each selection – this is useful to add a
white ‘photo border’ of about 16 to 20 pixels.
You can mat each division etc.
Fig 3. Completed division.
