Film Strip Photo Collage in Photoshop - Part 2
Learn Photoshop with Photo Effects Tutorials at Photoshop Essentials.com
Step 22: Open The Photo You Want To Add To The First Film Strip
We're ready to add our photos to the film strips. Since the steps are the same for each film strip, we'll look at how to add a photo to the first one ("film strip top"). Then, to add photos to the remaining film strips, simply repeat the same steps.
First, open the photo you want to place inside the film strip. Here's the photo I'll be using:
Step 23: Select And Copy The Photo
We're going to copy and paste the photo into the film strip, just as we copied and pasted the main photo into the photo collage document at the beginning of the tutorial. Press Ctrl+A (Win) / Command+A (Mac) to quickly select the entire image. You'll see a selection outline appear around the edges of the photo in the document window. Then press Ctrl+C (Win) / Command+C (Mac) to copy the photo to your computer's memory.
Step 24: Twirl Open The Layer Group For The Top Film Strip
With the image copied to memory, switch over to the main photo collage document by clicking anywhere inside its document window. We need to access the shape layers that make up the film strip in the top right corner of the document, which means we need to twirl open the film strip's layer group. Click on the small triangle icon on the far left of the "film strip top" group in the Layers panel. This will twirl open the layer group, allowing us to see the two shape layers inside of it:
Step 25: Select The Photo Area Layer
With the layer group open, click on the photo area layer to select it. The shape on this layer represents the area where the photo will appear inside the film strip:
Step 26: Paste The Image Into The Film Strip
With the "photo layer" selected, press Ctrl+V (Win) / Command+V (Mac) to paste the photo into the film strip. If we look in the document window, we can see that the photo now appears in front of the main image, but it doesn't look like it's inside the film strip just yet. We'll fix that in a moment (your photo may appear much larger in the document window than mine, since I'm using smaller images for my film strips):
Even though the photo doesn't yet appear to be inside the film strip, if we look in the Layers panel, we see that sure enough, Photoshop has placed the image inside the "film strip top" layer group, directly above the "photo area" layer, which is exactly where we want it. Photoshop always adds new layers directly above the layer that was selected, which is why we selected the "photo area" layer before pasting in the image:
Step 27: Position The Photo Inside The Film Strip
With the Move Tool still selected, click on the image in the document window and drag it over to the film strip in the top right corner so that it fills the entire gray photo area in the center of the film strip. Don't worry about positioning it exactly right for now:
Step 28: Create A Clipping Mask
Once you have the photo moved into position, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen and choose Create Clipping Mask, or press Ctrl+Alt+G (Win) / Command+Option+G (Mac) to select the Create Clipping Mask command with the keyboard shortcut:
This tells Photoshop to "clip" the photo to the shape on the "photo area" layer below it, and now, only the area of the photo that falls within the boundaries of the shape remains visible in the document. The rest of the photo is hidden from view, creating the illusion that the image is inside the film strip:
