Note: This tutorial is meant as a supplement to my digital painting tutorial.
What you will need
- Adobe Photoshop.
- A reference photograph.
Part One: Preparing a grid for your reference photo.
Find the width of your reference image
First thing you need to do is find the width of your reference image. In my case it’s 1024px.
Find the width of each square in your grid
Because I wanted 10 squares in my grid I divided that number by 10. Find the number of squares that’s appropriate for you. Generally a good range is between 8 and 12.
1024px/10 = 102.4px
Because you can’t have .4 pixels I rounded this down to 102.
Create the square pattern.
Open a new document and set the width and height to 102 pixels.
Unlock the background layer by double clicking it. Click the little Fx at the bottom of the layers palette to open the layer style window. Apply these settings.
Next go to Edit > Define Pattern. Give it the name Grid and click OK
Create the grid channel.
Go to your reference image.
Click Window > Channels To bring up the channels tab. Create a new channel and name it Grid.
Type Shift - F5 to bring up the fill dialog.
Select Pattern from the drop down menu and then select Grid (the one you just created).
Click Ok
It should look something like this.
Fill the grid lines with black
Go back to the layers palette and create a new layer on top of your reference photo, name this layer Grid.
Go to Select > Load Selection. Select Grid from the drop down menu and click ok.
You should see a selection mask.
Go to Select > Inverse to invert the selection.
Press Shift - F5 and select Black From the drop down list.
Presto! You have a grid!
Part Two: Preparing a grid for your canvas.
Create a new canvas the same size as your reference photo. In my case it was 1024 x 768 pixels.
Create a new layer above the background layer, name this Grid
Like before, go to the channels palette and create a new channel and name it Grid, with the
new channel selected, press Shift - F5 and select your pattern.
Go back to the layers palette select the grid layer and go to Select > Load Selection. Select
Grid from the drop down menu and click Ok.
Invert the selection mask and fill it with black.
It should look like this.
Make the canvas larger than the reference
If you’re making this grid for the portrait, it’s a good idea to make the canvas larger than the image source.
Go to Image > Image Size and apply these settings.
Comments
Post by john on April 20, 2008
your tutorials are brilliant thank you
Post by Hawk on November 7, 2008
Very Helpful, THANKS!
Post by Jade on February 20, 2009
Fraid it won't work for me. I go to add a stroke but nothing shows on the new document thus I can't define a pattern cos Photoshop counts it as empty.
Post by Josh on March 31, 2009
This worked well, thanks.
Post by Tony on April 2, 2009
Why not just simply use the grid feature in photoshop? You can set the size and frequency and it's much faster.
Post by Tony on April 2, 2009
To make Grid visible ////////////// View/ Show/ Grid To edit the Grid ///////////////// Photoshop/Preferences/Guides, Grids & Slices I'm using CS4 but I'm pretty sure this has been around for a few versions.
Post by Joshua Bolduc on May 15, 2009
Photoshop's grid tool is used for aligning objects. This grid is for capturing proportions between different size images. You can't get the same proportions with Photoshop's grid tool unless the canvas is the same size.
Post by Vegar on July 21, 2009
Excellent! Clear and well written. Thank you!
Post by anubhav on July 27, 2009
Create the square pattern. Open a new document and set the width and height to 102 pixels. Unlock the background layer by double clicking it. Click the little Fx at the bottom of the layers palette to open the layer style window. Apply these settings. I CANT UNDERSTAND PLZ EXPLAIN ?
Post by Anubhav on August 9, 2009
How to make a grid with white lines on black or dark backgrounds ????
Post by Vola on January 31, 2010
This is just AWESOME. I needed to reference some pictures for a drawing, and the were on the PC and thi is just what i needed. If you need it to be white, instead of putting the "black" setting in this part: "Press Shift - F5 and select Black From the drop down list",just put white.
Post by Michael Tan on February 8, 2010
Hey! Your tutorial is very helpful. Tks for the tips!
Post by Alana Dwek on February 25, 2010
i didn't know photoshop was used for grids? what happened to in design?! photoshop is for photo's, illustrator text/type and indesign layout eg. books, magazine, posters, grids etc...