One of the things I love about fashion magazines are the product collages — I admire how designers find fun, clever ways to combine a lot of different product images into a single coherent image. It could be based on a color theme, a current style (lace, anyone?), or purses, or shoes — anything at all. In fact, at one time I was so caught up in collages that I started a blog where the two posts I created were collages (I had big plans for it, but I got really lazy). My collages were of things I really liked. Though I don’t have time for 10 Pretty Things these days, I still use my collaging experience to prepare simpler images for Pugly Pixel…
Reward Style Affiliate
Though I don’t have sponsorships, I signed up for the Reward Style affiliate program last week just for fun. A few years back I had an Amazon Affiliates store and I made $25 over a two-year period. That kinda threw a wet blanket on the affiliate thing for me. Reward Style is pretty much like Amazon Affiliates, but at least I can put pictures of pretty stuff on my blog.
Some bloggers use affiliate links in their collages. I didn’t want to do that originally. Instead, I just wanted to feature a single Delectable item at the bottom of my sidebar. Reward Style provides a little widget for this kind of thing, but I don’t really like it, so I made my own. A pal asked me just yesterday where I got my widget, which got me thinking about this collage tutorial. If you want a similar sidebar widget with in-place CSS labels and rotating graphics per page, please read this post!
“Paper Doll” Cut-Outs Tutorial
Today, I’m going to show you how to make Paper Doll “Cut-Outs” out of product images. This is a great way to to isolate products from their backgrounds quickly without clipping masks (which can be tedious sometimes). All you’ll need in this tutorial are some product photos and Photoshop’s Polygonal Lasso Tool. If you want to take it a step further, I’ll show you a few more enhancements at the end of this post.
Some Easy Enhancements!
Example #1: Enumeration Labels
Style the numbers you use to enumerate collage elements by adding a layer of enumeration labels. Learn how to add enumeration labels here.
Example #2: Enumeration Labels and Drop Shadows
Drop shadows can add dimension to your paper “cut-out” collage. To add drop shadows, add an adjustment layer and select Drop Shadow.
Example #3: Image Map
Instead of enumerating your collage, you can turn it into an image map where each item in the collage becomes a clickable link.
Example #4: Change Blending Mode to Multiply
If you’re using a light neutral background for your collage, setting the collage blending mode to Multiply will remove the appearance of the paper portion of your collage. Read more about how to change a layer’s blending mode here.
frontage from myfonts
animated gif (tutorial)
drawn arrows with pencil brushes (noteworthy)
blending modes (tutorial)
image map (tutorial)
