STEP BY STEPhttp://www.digitalcameraworld.com JUNE 2019 DIGITAL CAMERA^75
1
Blend your pic with the mosaic
Open your image into Photoshop CC (or practise with Daisy.jpg).
Press Ctrl/Cmd+A, Ctrl/Cmd+C and Ctrl/Cmd+W to select,
copy and close it. Now go to File > Open and load the mosaic grid
you want to use. If your image is in portrait format, go to Image
> Image Rotation > 90º Clockwise. Press Ctrl/Cmd+V to paste
in your picture. In the Layers panel, set the Blending Mode
to Screen. The pic will appear through the grid. If you want
to change the size of your pic, press Ctrl/Cmd+T to enter
Free Transform mode, and drag the corner handles of the
bounding box to adjust. Press Return when you’re done.3
Change the edges
To create a contrasting edge effect around the periphery of the
image, select the Lasso Tool and draw a rough margin around
the edge. Once the selection is complete, get the inverse of the
selection by pressing Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I, then click Select And
Mask in the Options bar. Move Feather to around 150-200px to
soften the edge. Now create a Curves Adjustment Layer. Push
the curve up to brighten the area, then click where it says RGB
and select the Red, Green or Blue channel. By pushing or
pulling the curves for the individual colour channels, you
can change the edge colours to suit your image.2
Add colour washes to specific areas
Click on the Adjustment Layer icon and select Hue/Saturation
from the list. Tick Colorize and adjust Hue and Saturation to
create a single colour. Press D to reset the foreground and
background colours, then press Ctrl/Cmd+Backspace to fill the
mask with black. Select the Brush Tool and pick an arty brush
like Chalk 60 Pixels. Set the Opacity to about 50%, increase
the brush size with ] and paint over the squares wherever you
want the single colour wash to appear. Repeat this step with
a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer, but now choose
a contrasting colour and reveal it in different squares.4
Break out your subject
If you want your subject to break out of the grid and sit above
it, click on the Background layer to select it, then press Ctrl/
Cmd+Alt+Shift+N to create an empty new layer above it. Press
D to reset the colours, then use the Brush Tool to paint black
into the new layer wherever you want to lose the white spaces
between the grid squares. If you want this to be very accurate,
use a small round brush and zoom in tight to paint out the
spaces with precision. Adjust the Opacity of your Adjustment
Layers to get the colour balance you like. To change any colours,
click on the Adjustment Layer concerned, and alter to taste.