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Written by Steve Patterson. In this Photoshop Effects Resizing Images To Match Photo Frame Sizes
tutorial, we’ll learn how to create a colorized grid With Photoshop CS6
design! We’ll use Photoshop’s guides and rulers to set
Sync Photoshop’s Color Settings With All Creative
up the initial spacing, then a couple of rarely used Suite Apps
selection tools to convert the guides into an actual grid.
We’ll learn how to easily select random squares in the grid Removing Acne, Skin Blemishes With The Spot
Healing Brush In Photoshop
and colorize them with adjustment layers and blend
modes, and finally, how to color and adjust the
appearance of the grid itself! I’ll be using Photoshop CS5 Most Popular Tutorials
throughout the tutorial, but any recent version will work.
How To Resize Images In Photoshop
Here’s the final effect we’ll be working towards: Photoshop Water Reflection Effect
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Understanding Layer Masks In Photoshop
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Step 1: Create A New Photoshop Document
Let’s begin by creating a new document for the grid. Go up to the File menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the
screen and choose New:
This opens Photoshop’s New Document dialog box. I’m going to create a square-shaped document by entering
1000 pixels for both the Width and Height. Of course, you can enter whatever dimensions you need, but the
effect tends to work best if you stick to a square shape. For this tutorial, I’ll leave the Resolution value set to 72
pixels/inch, which is fine if you’re creating this effect for the web. If you’re planning on printing the final result, you’ll
want to create a larger document and set your resolution to 240 pixels/inch or higher. Click OK when you’re done
to close out of the dialog box. The new document will appear on your screen:
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The New Document dialog box.
Right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) inside the rulers and select Percent from the list.
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Click inside the left ruler and drag out a vertical guide to the 10% mark.
Do the same thing to add a guide at each 10% increment (20%, 30%, 40%, and so on), all the way up to the 90%
mark. Your document should now appear divided into 10 equally-spaced vertical columns:
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The guides divide the document into 10 vertical columns.
Next, use the same steps to add horizontal guides. Click inside the top ruler and with your mouse button held down,
drag out a horizontal guide. Use the left ruler to place the guide at the 10% mark. Continue dragging out horizontal
guides at 10% increments (20%, 30%, 40%, just like before) all the way down to the 90% mark. When you’re
finished, you should have the same number of horizontal and vertical guides dividing the document up into a grid of
squares:
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The guides divide the document into a grid of squares.
With the guides in place, press Ctrl+R (Win) / Command+R (Mac) on your keyboard to hide the rulers, since we no
longer need them.
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Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) and click on the New Layer icon.
Normally, Photoshop would just go ahead and add a new blank layer, but by holding down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac)
when clicking the New Layer icon, we tell it to first pop open the New Layer dialog box, which gives us the chance
the name the new layer before it’s added. Name the layer “Grid”, then click OK:
The new blank layer appears in the Layers panel above the Background layer:
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Photoshop adds the new layer and names it “Grid”.
Click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool near the top of the Tools panel and hold your mouse button down for a
second or two until a small fly-out menu appears showing you the other tools nested in behind in, then choose the
Single Row Marquee Tool from the list:
Click and hold on the Rectangular Marquee Tool’s icon, then select the Single Row Marquee Tool.
As it’s name implies, the Single Row Marquee Tool will select a single horizontal row of pixels in the document. To
use the tool, we just need to click anywhere in the document and Photoshop will automatically select the pixel we
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clicked on, plus every other pixel in that row from left to right. We’re going to use the tool to convert the horizontal
grid lines into a series of selection outlines. First, move your cursor directly over the top horizontal grid line (the one
you placed at the 10% mark) and click. You’ll see a 1-pixel thick selection outline appear along the guide:
Click anywhere on the first horizontal guide to add a selection outline around it.
Hold down your Shift key and click on the next horizontal guide below it. This will add a second selection outline to
the document. Continue holding down your Shift key and clicking on all the horizontal guides until a selection outline
appears along each of them. You should see 9 selection outline rows in total. Make sure you keep your Shift key
held down as you click on each new guide, otherwise you’ll just replace the previous selection outline with the new
one:
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Hold Shift and click on each horizontal guide to add a selection outline around each one.
We need to do the same thing now with the vertical guides, which means we need to switch to the Single Column
Marquee Tool. Click on the Single Row Marquee Tool in the Tools panel (it will appear where the Rectangular
Marquee Tool icon appeared earlier) and hold your mouse button down until the fly-out menu appears, then choose
the Single Column Marquee Tool from the list:
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Click and hold on the Single Row Marquee Tool’s icon, then select the Single Column Marquee Tool.
We want our vertical selection outlines to be added to the horizontal selection outlines we already have, so once
again hold down your Shift key, then click on each of the vertical guides in the document until they’re all selected.
When you’re done, you should have selection outlines along every guide, horizontally and vertically:
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Go to Edit > Fill.
When the Fill dialog box appears, set the Use option at the top to Black, then click OK to close out of the dialog
box:
This fills the selections with black, although it may be hard to see with the guides and selection outlines in the way,
so go up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose Deselect, which will remove the selection
outlines:
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Go to Select > Deselect.
Then, to turn off the guides, go up to the View menu, choose Show, and then choose Guides. At first, you’ll see a
checkmark to the left of the word Guides which tells us the guides are currently visible. Clicking Guides will remove
the checkmark and turn the guides off:
With the selection outlines and guides removed, we can see our black grid on the Grid layer:
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The black grid lines now appear.
Step 8: Open The Photo You Want To Use With The Effect
Open the photo you’ll be using with the grid effect. Here’s my image:
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Open the photo.
If you’re using Photoshop CS3 or earlier, the photo will automatically open in its own floating document window. If
you’re using Photoshop CS4 or CS5, depending on how you have things set up in Photoshop’s Preferences, the
photo may open in a tabbed document. If that’s the case, to make the next step easier, go up to the Window menu
at the top of the screen, choose Arrange, and then choose Float All in Windows (CS4 and CS5 only):
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Go to Window > Arrange > Float All in Windows (Photoshop CS4 and CS5 only).
With the grid’s document window selected, click on the Background layer in the Layers panel.
Now click anywhere inside the photo’s document window to make it active and select the Move Tool from the Tools
panel:
Grab the Move Tool from the top of the Tools panel.
Hold down your Shift key, then click with the Move Tool inside the photo’s document window and drag the photo
into the grid’s document window:
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With the Move Tool selected, hold Shift and drag the photo into the grid document.
Release your mouse button, then release your Shift key, and the photo will appear centered inside the grid’s
document window. You can close out of the photo’s document at this point since we no longer need it:
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Holding the Shift key is what centers the photo inside the document when you drag it.
Notice that the grid appears in front of the photo. That’s because, if we look in the Layers panel, we see that the
photo has been placed on its own layer under the Grid layer, just as we wanted:
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Photoshop placed the photo on a new layer directly above the layer that was active, which is why we first selected the Background
layer.
This places the Free Transform bounding box and handles around the image. If you can’t see the handles
because the edges of your photo extend beyond the viewable area in the document window, go up to the View
menu and choose Fit on Screen:
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Go to View > Fit on Screen.
Photoshop will instantly zoom the image out far enough so that everything, including the Free Transform handles,
fits inside the document window. To resize the photo, hold down your Shift key, then click on any of the four corner
handles and drag them. Holding the Shift key down as you drag will maintain the original aspect ratio of the image
so you don’t accidentally distort the look of it. If you want to resize the photo from its center rather than from a
corner, hold Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac) as you drag any of the corner handles. If you need to move the
image around inside the document, simply click anywhere inside the Free Transform bounding box and drag it into
place. When you’re done, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the change and exit out of the Free
Transform command:
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Drag any of the corner handles to resize the image with Free Transform.
If you zoomed the image out a moment ago using the Fit on Screen command and want to zoom back in now that
you’re done resizing the image, go back up to the View menu and choose Actual Pixels (see our Zooming and
Panning in Photoshop tutorial for more info on zooming in and out of documents):
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Go to View > Actual Pixels.
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In Photoshop CS3 and higher, the Magic Wand is hiding behind the Quick Selection Tool.
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Click inside the top left square in the grid with the Magic Wand Tool to select it.
Hold down your Shift key and continue clicking inside each of the squares around the outer edges of the grid to
add them all to the selection:
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All of the outer edge squares now have selection outlines around them.
I’m going to add a few more squares to my selection as well by again holding down my Shift key and clicking inside
them to add them to the previously selected squares. To make it easier to see which squares I’ve selected, I’ve
colorized them in yellow (this isn’t part of the effect, it’s just to make it easier to see the squares I’ve selected in the
screenshot):
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My initially selected squares.
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Hold down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and click on the New Layer icon.
Normally, Photoshop adds new layers directly above the currently selected layer, but by holding the Ctrl (Win) /
Command (Mac) key when clicking the New Layer icon, the layer is added below the currently selected layer. We
can see in the Layers panel that we now have a new blank layer between the photo on Layer 1 and the Grid layer:
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The new layer appears below, not above, the Grid layer.
Photoshop fills the selected squares with white. Deselect the squares by going up to the Select menu and choosing
Deselect, or simply press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) to deselect them with the keyboard shortcut:
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A border of white squares appears around the image.
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Click on the Grid layer to select it.
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Hold Shift and click inside a few different squares to select them.
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Select the photo layer in the Layers panel.
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Choose Hue/Saturation from the list of adjustment layers that appears:
If you’re using Photoshop CS4 or CS5, the controls and options for the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer will appear
inside the Adjustments Panel. In CS3 and earlier, a separate Hue/Saturation dialog box will open. First, select the
Colorize option by clicking inside its checkbox. Then, choose the color you want to colorize the selected squares
with by dragging the Hue slider. For these squares, I’m going to leave the Hue slider set all the way to the left (its
default position) which selects red. Of course, you can choose whichever color you like. To increase the color’s
saturation, drag the Saturation slider towards the right. I’m going to set my Saturation value to 55. Keep an eye on
your document as you drag the sliders to preview the results. For Photoshop CS3 and earlier users, click OK when
you’re done to close out of the dialog box:
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Click the Colorize option, then choose a color with the Hue and Saturation sliders.
Step 20: Change The Blend Mode For The Adjustment Layer To Color
If we look in the Layers panel, we see the adjustment layer sitting directly above the photo layer. Make sure it’s
selected (highlighted in blue), then go up to the Blend Mode option at the top of the Layers panel and change its
blend mode from Normal (the default mode) to Color. This makes sure we’re changing only the colors in the image,
not the brightness values:
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A few red squares have been added to the effect.
You can also use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to completely desaturate some of the squares, leaving them
black and white. To do that, select some squares, then add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer as you normally
would, but rather than choosing a color with the Hue slider, simply drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left,
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which will remove all the color (no need to select the Colorize option, either):
Remove all color from some squares by dragging the Saturation slider all the way to the left.
Here’s my effect so far after colorizing more squares with additional Hue/Saturation adjustment layers. In case you
want to use the same colors I did, for blue I set Hue to 200, Saturation to 30. For Green, Hue was set to 120,
Saturation 25. For Purple, Hue was 289, Saturation 35. And as I just mentioned, for the black and white squares,
Saturation was set to -100 by dragging the slider all the way to the left:
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The colorized grid effect so far.
Step 22: Try A Different Color Mode For Some Of The Adjustment Layers
The one problem I have with my result so far is that it doesn’t really look as bright and colorful as I was hoping for.
One way to change that is to change the blend mode for some of the adjustment layers. If we look in the Layers
panel, we can see all the adjustment layers I’ve used to colorize the squares. There’s five in total, including the one
I used for the black and white effect:
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Five adjustment layers were used for the effect.
To add more interest to the image, try changing the blend mode for some of the adjustment layers to something
other than Color. To do that, just click on the adjustment layer in the Layers panel to select it, then change the
blend mode at the top of the Layers panel. For example, I think the red color in my image is looking a little dull, so I’ll
click on the top Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in the Layers panel to select it (since it’s the one I used to add
red), then I’ll change its blend mode from Color to Screen:
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Selecting the red Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, then changing its blend mode to Screen.
The Screen blend mode makes things brighter but also tends to reduce color saturation, so to compensate, with the
red Hue/Saturation adjustment layer selected, I’ll go back to the Adjustments Panel and increase the Saturation
value for red to 70 (for Photoshop CS3 and earlier users, click on the adjustment layer’s thumbnail in the Layers
panel to re-open the Hue/Saturation dialog box to make any changes, then click OK to close out of the dialog box):
Changing a blend mode may require adjustments to the color’s saturation level.
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Here’s my image after changing the blend mode for red to Screen and increasing its color saturation. Notice the red
squares now look brighter:
I’ll do the same thing with the purple Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, first clicking on it to select it in the Layers
panel, then changing its blend mode to Screen and increasing its color saturation to 55 in the Adjustments Panel
(or dialog box in CS3 and earlier). Other blend modes that can give you good results include Multiply (for a darker
color), as well as Overlay which will give you a higher contrast effect but may also change the appearance of the
color itself. Here’s my effect now with the red and purple squares set to the Screen blend mode:
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Different blend modes will give you different effects. Screen, Multiply and Overlay are good ones to try.
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Click on the Lock Transparent Pixels icon.
Go up to the Edit menu and once again choose Fill. When the Fill dialog box appears, the Use option should
already be set to White since that’s what we set it to last time, so just click OK to close out of the dialog box.
Photoshop will fill the grid lines with white:
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Photoshop fills the layer with white but only the grid lines are affected.
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Click on the Layer Styles icon.
This opens Photoshop’s Layer Style dialog box set to the Stroke options in the middle column. Click on the color
swatch beside the word Color, which opens the Color Picker. Choose white from the Color Picker, then click OK
to close out of it. With white now as the stroke color, leave the Position set to Outside and adjust the width of the
stroke by dragging the Size slider while keeping an eye on the document to judge the result. I’m going to set my
stroke’s size to 2 px (pixels):
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Change the color of the stroke to white, then adjust its width with the Size slider.
Click OK to close out of the Layer Style dialog box, and we’re done! Here is my final color grid effect:
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The final result.
Web Inventory
Software
www.channeladvisor.com
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Platform.
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