All Cut Up

One of the great advantages of working with digital is that we can take a picture and transform it in a few simple steps. This image of Canary Wharf was taken with the Coolpix 990.

With our image open in our chosen software we increase our Canvas Size(dia 1). First select white as the background colour in our tool box, and under the Menu Bar choose Image > Canvas size and increase both the width and height by one inch. Click on the center box to ensure our white border is placed evenly around our image.

We now need to map out the areas that we are going to copy in order to keep our image looking balanced. From the menu bar select View > Show Rulers which will put a ruler around our image on two sides. Click on the side of the ruler and drag the lines out to mark our cutting grids. From our Tool box we select our Rectangular Marquee tool short cut M on the keyboard, and from the top corner of our image we drag our marquee downwards until we just overlap our first grid.

To copy our selection use the Edit > Copy or press Ctrl C command then paste our selection Edit > Paste or Ctrl V. Try using the short cuts as they are much quicker. We find that Photoshop has pasted in our selection as a new layer. Repeat this process until we have copied all the sections in our grid - but make sure when copying a selection we are working on our background layer.

With our background layer 'live' click on the Create New Layer icon, this will put a new empty layer above our background layer. Fill the new layer with white using the Edit >Fill command. Our new white layer will hide any of the original background image.

Select one of our new layers and from our menu bar Layers > Effect > Drop shadow set the distance to around 15, but try experimenting with the settings as the effect is added to all our layers. Why not try changing the order of our layers to give an 'overlapping' effect? In our layers palette click on the layer we want to move by right mouse clicking and drag it on top of the other layers.

We can also alter the angle of our new layer by calling up our Transform command Edit > Free Transform or Ctrl T. This puts a frame around a section of the image and by using the grab handles enables us to alter the angle.

Tip: …Here is a really useful tip when working in layers; select the Move Tool short cut V and right mouse click on an area of our image and a dialog box will open telling us which layer it is. We can then select this layer or choose any of the other options that are shown.

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