Film Strip Photo Collage in Photoshop - Part 2
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Step 15: Move, Reposition And Rotate The Film Strip With Free Transform
Now that we have our first film strip, let's move it into position. I'm going to move mine into the top right corner of the document. I'm also going to make it a bit smaller and, to add a little more visual interest, I'll rotate it slightly. I can do all three of these things with Photoshop's Free Transform command, so with the layer group selected in the Layers panel, I'll press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to quickly bring up the Free Transform box and handles around the film strip, just as we saw earlier when we moved and resized the main photo.
To move the film strip, I'll click inside of it and, with my mouse button held down, I'll drag it up into the top right corner of the document, releasing my mouse button once it's in place:
To resize it and make it a bit smaller, I'll hold down my Shift key, which will constrain the aspect ratio of the film strip as I resize it so I don't accidentally distort its shape, then I'll click on the handle in the bottom left corner (it doesn't matter which corner you choose), keep my mouse button held down, and drag it in towards the center of the film strip, releasing my mouse button when I'm done:
Finally, to rotate the film strip, I'll move my mouse button outside of the Free Transform bounding box, at which point my mouse cursor changes to a small rotate icon, then I'll click, hold my mouse button down, and drag to rotate the film strip. I'm going to rotate my film strip counter-clockwise, releasing my mouse button when I'm done:
When you're finished moving, resizing and rotating your film strip, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the changes and exit out of the Free Transform command.
Step 16: Rename The Layer Group
Back when we created a layer group out of the two shape layers that make up our film strip, we changed the name of the group from the generic name "Group 1" that Photoshop gave it to "film strip". Since we're going to be adding several copies of the film strip to our document, let's be even more descriptive with our group names to make it easy to distinguish between them in the Layers panel. I'm going to double-click directly on the group's name in the Layers panel and add the word "top" to the end of the group's name. Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the change:
Step 17: Drag Out A Copy Of The Film Strip
Let's add our second film strip. I'm going to place my second one in the bottom right corner of the document, directly below the first one. With the Move Tool selected, I'll hold down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac), click on the film strip in the document window and drag it straight down to the bottom right corner. The Alt / Option key tells Photoshop to make a copy of the film strip as I drag, rather than moving the original film strip, and holding the Shift key limits the direction that I can drag in, making it easy to drag straight down:
Step 18: Rename The New Film Strip's Layer Group
If we look in the Layers panel, we can see that we now have two layer groups, each one containing a different film strip. Photoshop automatically named our second group "film strip top copy", so let's double-click on the group's name and change it to "film strip bottom". Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the name change:
Step 19: Drag Out A Third Film Strip
With the "film strip bottom" layer group selected in the Layers panel and the Move Tool still selected, hold down Shift+Alt (Win) / Shift+Option (Mac), just as we did a moment ago, and drag out a third film strip. This creates a copy of the film strip we just added in the bottom right corner. I'm going to drag straight up to place my third film strip directly between the other two:
Step 20: Rotate The Third Film Strip
Since having all three film strips rotated exactly the same way looks a bit dull, I'll press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform box and handles around my third film strip. I'll move my mouse cursor outside of the Free Transform box, which changes the cursor to the rotate icon, then I'll click, hold my mouse button down, and drag to rotate the film strip:
Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the change and exit out of the Free Transform command.
Step 21: Rename The Third Film Strip's Layer Group
We have our three film strips in place, but before we starting adding photos to them, let's rename the third film strip's layer group in the Layers panel, which is currently named "film strip bottom copy". Double-click on its name and change it to "film strip middle", then press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the change:
We're ready to add photos to the film strips. We'll do that next!
