Let's get started.
I'm going to work on the main photo
(the photo of mom) first, and what we need to do is crop it into a close-up of
her face. Cropping the main image into a square works best for this effect, so
grab your Rectangular Marquee Tool from the Tools palette, or press M to
quickly access it with the keyboard shortcut:
Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool
from the Tools palette.
Then, with the Rectangular Marquee
Tool selected, drag out a square selection around the person's face. Hold down
your Shift key as you drag to constrain the selection to a perfect
square. If you need to reposition your selection as you're dragging it, hold
down your spacebar and as you move your mouse, your selection will move
along with it. Release the spacebar to continue dragging out the selection:
Drag out a square selection around
the person's face.
Now that we have our selection, we
can use it to crop the image. Go up to the Image menu at the top of the
screen and choose Crop. Photoshop will go ahead and crop the image around the selection,
leaving you with just the square area you selected:
The main image is now cropped into a
square around the woman's face.
That's all we need to do with the main
photo for now. Let's work on the photos of the kids.
Step
2: Crop The Smaller Photos
We're going to crop the smaller
photos next, and we'll be cropping them into a square, just like we did with
the main photo. Rather than using the Rectangular Marquee Tool though, let's
use the Crop Tool, since we're going to be cropping these photos down to
a specific size. Now, the actual size that you crop them to is going to depend
on the size of your main photo and also on how many smaller photos you want to
use to fill your main photo with, so you may need to experiment a little with
this.
Grab your Crop tool from the Tools
palette, or press C on your keyboard to select it:
Select the Crop Tool.
With the Crop Tool selected, go up
to the Options Bar at the top of the screen and enter in a value of 50
px (pixels) for both the width and height:
Enter "50 px" (pixels) for
the width and height in the Options Bar.
Again, you may need to experiment a
little with the sizes depending on the size of your main image.
Now that we have our width and
height entered for the Crop Tool, I'm going to drag a selection around the head
of the child in the first photo. No need to hold down my Shift key this time to
constrain my selection to a perfect square since we've already specified a
width and height in the Options Bar. If you need to reposition your selection
though as you're dragging it out, hold down the spacebar once again to move the
selection around on the screen, then release the spacebar to continue dragging
the selection:
Drag a selection around the head of
the person in the first photo with the Crop Tool.
You can use the handles in any of
the four corners to resize your selection after you release your mouse button.
You can also reposition the selection by clicking inside of it and dragging it
around with your mouse. When you're happy with your selection, press Enter
(Win) / Return (Mac) to accept it, and Photoshop will not only crop the
image around your selection, it will also resize it to 50x50 pixels (or
whatever size you entered for the width and height in the Options Bar):
The first photo cropped to 50x50
pixels.
Do the same thing with the second
photo, dragging a selection around the person's head with the Crop Tool,
resizing and repositioning it as needed, and then pressing Enter (Win) / Return
(Mac) to accept the selection and have Photoshop crop and resize it for you.
Here's my selection around the young girl in the second photo:
Drag a selection around the head of
the person in the second photo with the Crop Tool.
And after pressing Enter/Return,
here is my cropped, 50x50 pixel image:
The second photo cropped to 50x50
pixels.
Step
3: Open A New 100 px x 100 px Document
Now that we have our cropped and
resized images, we're going to create our pattern out of them. Go up to the File
menu at the top of the screen and select New..., or use the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+N (Win) / Command+N (Mac). Either way brings up Photoshop's New Document dialog box. We want to
create a new document that's twice as wide and twice as high as the two photos
we just cropped, so since mine were cropped to 50x50 pixels, I'm going to enter
100 pixels for my document's width and 100 pixels for my document's height:
Enter a width and height for your
new document that's twice as large as your two smaller photos.
Also, make sure the Resolutionfor your new document is the same at it is for your photos. Select one of your
photos and go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen, then select
Image Size, which will bring up the Image Size dialog box. Check the
value listed beside "Resolution". It will most likely say either 72,
240 or 300. Make sure your new Photoshop document is set to that same resolution
value, which is located directly beneath the "Height" value.
Click OK in the top right corner of
the New Document dialog box to exit out of it and have Photoshop create your
new document.
Step
4: Drag Your Two Small Images Into The New Document
Grab your Move Tool from the
Tools palette or by pressing V on your keyboard:
Select the Move Tool.
Then click inside the first photo
with the Move Tool and drag it into the new document.
Click inside the first image with
the Move Tool and drag it into the new document.
Click inside the new document and
drag the image into the top left corner. It should snap into place:
Click inside the new document and
drag the image into the top left corner.
Click inside the new document once
again, and this time hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and drag the image into the
bottom right corner. By holding down Alt/Option, rather than moving the
original image, you'll be creating a copy of it as you drag and you'll end up
with two copies of the image, one in the top left corner and one in the bottom
right corner:
Hold down "Alt" (Win) /
"Option" (Mac) and drag the image into the bottom right corner to
create a copy of it.
Now let's do the same thing with the
second image. First, click inside of it with the Move Tool and drag it into the
new document:
Drag the second image into the new
document with the Move Tool.
Then click inside the new document
and drag the image into the top right corner:
Drag the image into the top right
corner.
Finally, hold down your Alt
(Win) / Option (Mac) key once again and drag the image into the bottom
left corner, making a copy of it as you drag thanks to the Alt/Option key:
Hold down "Alt" (Win) /
"Option" (Mac) and drag the image into the bottom left corner
Step
5: Flatten The Image
If you look in the Layers palette of
your new document, you should now have five layers:
Photoshop's Layers palette showing
five layers.
Let's flatten the image by going up
to the Layer menu at the top of the screen and selecting Flatten
Image. Nothing will seem to have happened in your document, but if you look
in the Layers palette, you'll see that everything has now been flattened onto one
layer:
The Layers palette now showing only
one layer after flattening the image.
Step
6: Desaturate The Image
Go up to the Image menu at
the top of the screen, choose Adjustments, and then choose Desaturate,
or use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+U (Win) / Shift+Command+U
(Mac). This will remove the colors from
the image, leaving it in black and white:
Press "Shift+Ctrl+U" (Win)
/ "Shift+Command+U" (Mac) to desaturate the image.
Step
7: Define A Pattern With The Image
Now we're ready to create out
pattern, or as Photoshop calls it, "define" our
pattern. Go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Define
Pattern. This brings up the Pattern Name dialog box. I'm going to
name my pattern "kids". You can name yours whatever you like of
course. Then click OK to exit out of the dialog box and your pattern is now
defined:
Type in a name for your pattern,
then click OK.
Step 8: Create A New Layer In The
Main Photo
We're done with the smaller photos
at this point, so switch back to your main photo and click on the New
Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to add a new blank
layer to the document, which we're going to use to fill the photo with the
pattern we just created: