Remaking the InDesign effect

ItalianMike asked me to explain how my 'Vector shapes' InDesign tip could be done in Photoshop. I promised I would, so here it is.

Photoshop is a very big box and everybody has his own ways of achieving things. So this tutorial is my way of handling this problem.

First of all open your image (that's easy).

Now double click in the 'Layers palet' in the background layer and rename your layer (the lock must disappear).

Next step is to create some shapes.

In the layers palet go to the 'Path' tab, select the black triangle, there you will find new path (give it a name and click OK).
In the toolbar I selected the rectangle tool and, with the shiftkey, I created a square. In the paths palet you will see a thumbnail version of your first square.

With the black arrow you can move the square where you want it. With the same tool I selected the square and copied it to the clipboard, and pasted it. The new square is exactly above the old one. With the black arrow i moved a little bit to the right with the shiftkey so that it stays horizontal. Selected the two squares, did the same copy/paste/move. Did it again with the first row and so on till I was satisfied with result.

The thumbnail in Paths palet shows your pattern.

This done go to the layers tab. The next thing you have to do is with the layer selected go to Menu > Layers > Add Layer Mask > Hide all.

Huh??? Everyhing is gone? Don't worry.
Next to the thumb of your image you see a black rectangle. This means that the whole picture is hidden by the mask.

Return to your Paths tab and select the path you created, go to the black triangle and now go to ''Make selection'. Leave everyting at the next query box to normal.

Return to your layers tab and you will see that you have a selection of your pattern. Be sure that the black mask is selected (simply click on it in your layers palet. With this selection active go to menu Edit > Fill. In the query box that follows choose as fill colour 'white'.

Et voilà, you have your image again but only where you created your pattern in the paths palet. Deselect all by hitting command+D.

Next with my layer still selected I went to menu Layer > Layer Styles > Drop Shadow, played around with the settings and the work is done.

Afterwards I created a new layer and filled it with white and put it beneath my image layer.

I hope this explains it.