Make a Photographic Collage using Vignettes
  Suitable for Adobe Photoshop CS CS2 & CS3
Skill Level - Intermediate

This lesson demonstrates how to create a basic vignette collage utilising the Marquee Tool.

Create collages lessons Here!

Vignettes from the Levels Command Here!

Vignette (pronounced vin-ne-et), is a term used to describe photographs with faded borders - an alternative lesson can be found Here.

Undo and Navigation Steps
Two ways of undoing steps are from the top menu, Edit then Step Backwards. Alternatively, click a previous snapshot in the History Palette.

Navigate (zoom in and pan) your image using the Navigator Palette,

or the Zoom Tool.

Activate The Hand Tool by tapping the Spacebar, keeping the Spacebar pressed, pan your image in the usual way.

1/
Open five images into Photoshop’s workspace, they don’t need to be a certain size, any large image will be fine. Now, decide which image you want to begin with, (all the other images will be dragged onto this image), I have started with my St Mary’s Lighthouse image (centre).

3/
From the toolbar, activate the Elliptical Marquee Tool, and set the following attributes.
 



Note
The Feather is set to 40 Pixels (px), this ensures a good blend with the collages background - however, the setting is worth experimenting with later - you may like
more, or less, feathering.

Now, drag out an elliptical shape onto your image, (below left), bearing in mind that the cut out part of the image will feather and may cut off parts of the subject you wish to keep. When you release the mouse button, your marquee will be applied and you will see the moving dotted lines - below right.

Tip
To constrain the ellipse into a circle, press the Shift key (of the keyboard) and simultaneously draw out your ellipse, and it will constrain to a circle.

Moving the selection
After you have applied the marquee, left-click inside it and drag the marquee to a central position. Note: Before moving your selection, ensure New selection is active.

4/
Now, from the top menu - choose Select then choose Inverse, and your marquee will change to the following.


Tip
Now is a good time to save your image as a PSD file.

Note - changing the marquees size
To change the shape of the selection, draw it onto your image first.

Right-click the image, and from the drop-down menu, choose Transform Selection.



And your elliptical selection will be surrounded by a Transform bounding box.

This allows you to reshape and reposition your marquee, when this is complete - click the Commit Transform tick. Or press Enter/Return.


Note
The following steps need to be carried out for each of the remaining images.

5/
When your marquee is in its final portion, from the keyboard - press the Delete key and the background of your image will be removed - from the top menu, choose Select then Deselect - your image will resemble the following and the first collage is complete. Don’t worry if it is too large as we can reduce (and reposition), the centre image later, if needed.

Simply left-click and drag the marquee to its new position.

7/
Activate the Move Tool. 

Then double left-click the second image and when you see the following icon.

Drag the second image onto the first.
Tip
You can now delete the second image.

Now, repeat Chapters 2 and 3 (exactly) to cut out the elliptical marquee from the remaining three images - then drag them onto the first image. When you have completed this, you will have five images on one transparent background, as shown below - to save PC resources, delete the remaining single images. Don’t worry if (like mine) your images are not the same size, we can resize them later.

Your Layers palette will resemble the following.
Note
The following (resizing) steps must be repeated for all five image-layers.

8/
We will now reposition and resize each image individually. Note: Before you can work on an image layer, it needs to be highlighted in the Layers palette first. Beginning with the first (centre) image, left-click to highlight its layer. 

Then right-click your collage and from the subsequent drop-down menu, click Free Transform.

Your centre image will surround with a transformation bounding box, as shown below.



You can now manoeuvre and deform the eight outer deform handles to resize and reposition the centre image - lesson here - remember to complete the reshaping by clicking the Commit Transform tick in the Free Transform Options bar.




When you have completed this, activate highlight the rest of the image layers (one by one) and reposition and resize, the images as needed. When you have completed this, the images on your collage will be the correct size and in the right position, as shown below.

Note
If after you fill the layer you find an image has solid edges, such as the following example.

It means you have created your elliptical cut out too close to the edge of the photograph and the only way of rectifying this is to Step Backwards a few times, deleting the layer and starting again with the cut out process. You could try smoothing the line now, using the Blur Tool (from the toolbar) with high Strength setting of 100%.
When you are completely happy with your collage, you are ready to save your work - you can save it as a Transparent Gif; alternatively, you can Merge Visible the layers (this retains the transparent background) and drag the image onto a different
background, a gradient for example, a pattern - or even another image. Alternatively, from the top menu, choose Layer then choose Flatten Image.

Wendi E. M. Scarth. Top of Page - Home.