Film Strip Photo Collage in Photoshop - Part 1
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Step 21: Delete The Drop Shadow From The New Shape
If we look in the Layers panel, we can see that our second shape has appeared on its own layer above the main film strip shape. And if we look directly below the shape layer, we can see that Photoshop has automatically applied the same Drop Shadow layer style that we added to the film strip. We don't need the shadow for our new shape, so let's get rid of it. Click on the word Effects, which will select all layer styles applied to a layer (even though in this case, we only have one), then keep your mouse button held down and drag it down on to the Trash Bin icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Release your mouse button when the cursor is over the Trash Bin to delete the layer styles:
Step 22: Drag The New Shape Below The Film Strip
Currently, the second shape is appearing above the film strip. We need it to appear below the film strip, as if it's acting as a placeholder for the photos we'll be adding in later, which means we need to drag the shape's layer below the film strip layer. To do that, click on "Shape 2" in the Layers panel, then keep your mouse button held down and drag the layer directly between the Background layer and the film strip layer. You'll know you're in the right place when you see a highlight bar appear between the two layers:
Release your mouse button when the highlight bar appears. The gray shape has now been moved below the film strip as we needed:
Click on the vector mask thumbnail for "Shape 2" in the Layers panel to deselect the shape, and we're done! Our film strip is now complete:
Step 23: Save The Film Strip As A Photoshop .PSD File
Unless you're getting paid by the hour, you probably won't want to redraw the film strip every time you want to use it, so let's save it as its own Photoshop document. This way, we'll be able to open it up and use it again any time we want. Go up to the File menu at the top of the screen and choose Save As:
This brings up Photoshop's Save As dialog box. I'm going to name my document "film-strip.psd". Make sure you choose Photoshop as the format, then save the file to a location that you can easily remember. I'm going to save mine to a "photoshop" folder I have on my desktop. Click the Save button when you're ready to save the file:
We've now successfully created and saved our film strip shape, and it's ready to be used as a photo frame in our collage, which is exactly what we'll be creating in part two of the tutorial!
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