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This tutorial will show you have to make a mosaic collage, similar to David Hockney's cubic photo-montage
To start off, open a photo on Photoshop, like I have done here.
I have chosen a photo of the London Eye
Begin by making a custom grid, by going onto File > New
A window should pop up where you can alter your dimension and resolution of your canvas
Change the width and height to 500 pixels and also the resolution to 72 pixels/inch, then click OK.
Now go onto Select > Select All
And then Edit > Stroke. A window will appear. Ensure that width - 1 px > Color - Black > Location - Inside, then click OK.
Now go to Edit > Define Pattern. A window will appear and change the name to Grid 500, then click OK.
After you can just close this canvas because you have already saved it as a pattern.
Now you're back to this picture here.
Your Grid will go onto its separate layer.
Go on to the bottom right of the screen there will be a little icon called (New Layer). Simply click on that and a new layer should appear on the Layers tool bar.
Next go to Edit > Fill. A window will appear. Change Use - Pattern and then Custom Pattern - Grid 500. (The pattern you have just made) Then click Ok
Now your original image has been filled with the Grid 500 pattern, which consists of squares.
Invert the image by pressing on CTRL + I on the keyboard and it the white background should appear black with white lines.
Change the Blend Mode > Screen. Now you can see through your Grid and see your Image underneath your Grid. The white lines acts as a guide to work with.
If your image does not fit perfectly onto the Grid, you can use the Crop Tool to crop out excess areas away to fit the grid. But in this case, I did not need to do this.
So I have 8 squares up and 6 squares down and that's a total of 48 squares.
Each one of those squares needs to become it's own separate layer.
To do this, use the Magic Wand and click inside the first layer (first square) and copy it (CTRL C) Then go to the Background layer and paste it (CTRL J)
A new layer will appear on the Layers bar and will show the copied selection onto the new layer.
You will have to do this process with all of the squares, like shown here.
This is an example tutorial, so I will only show the first top row. But you will have to do this technique to all of the squares.
Change each square layer to 80% opacity by clicking on each layer and pressing the number 8 on the keyboard (or simply go onto Opacity and changing it to 80%). Do this process to all the square layers.
Now you can delete the Grid because you won't need that any more.
Next add a new layer by going onto the add new layer icon and place it above the Background Layer.
Fill the new layer with white by going onto Edit > Fill. A window will appear and go onto Use > White and then click OK.
Now you can see all the square layers appearing on the white layer and the background layer behind it.
Now use the Arrow Tool and click on each square layer and move them around to your desire look. If you done the previous steps I showed you to all the squares then it will show all the square layers and it would be easy to piece together like a puzzle. Be creative and overlap your layers but don't over do it.
To lift each square and to give it dimension, go on your top layer and go to the Fx Option > Drop Shadow > Alter the Distance and Size to your Desire and Click OK
It has put that drop shadow effect on that layer but to add it every layer, hold the ALT key and drag the FX effect onto every layer.
To give it a more dimensional effect you can take off the white layer un-clicking the eye icon which will reveal the background image. You can also use this as a guide to where each square should be place and add the white layer back on later.
This is the final outcome after going through all these steps.