Creating Gallery Prints

This is basically an upscale version of the previous poster technique, but like photography in generalit's the little thingsand in this case, some little things can make your regular poster look much more elegant. By the way, in this technique I have you convert your photo to black and white using Channel Mixer. You don't have to convert to black and white at all; but if you do, you can substitute one of the black-and-white conversion techniques from Chapter 7 (they're better).

Step One

Open the photo you want to turn into a gallery-print poster. Press the letter D to set your Foreground/Background colors to their defaults, and then press Command-A (PC: Control-A) to put a selection around the entire photo. With your selection in place, press Shift-Command-J (PC: Shift-Control-J) to cut the photo from the Background layer and put it on its own separate layer.

Step Two

You're going to add white canvas space around your photo (like you did in the previous tutorial, but this time you're going to add more space). So, go under the Image menu and choose Canvas Size (or press Option-Command-C [PC: Alt-Control-C]). Turn on the Relative checkbox, enter 3 inches for both Width and Height, choose White in the Canvas Extension Color pop-up menu, and click OK to add white space around your photo. Go back to the Canvas Size dialog once again, and then enter 1 inch for Height, click on the top-center square in the Anchor grid (so the space is only added below your photo), and click OK.

Step Three

To convert your color photo to black and white, choose Channel Mixer from the Create New Adjustment Layer popup menu at the bottom of the Layers palette. When the dialog appears, click on the Monochrome checkbox and click OK. In the Layers palette, click on the Create a New Layer icon to create a new layer above your Channel Mixer layer. Do not switch layers, but hold the Command (PC: Control) key and click directly on your photo layer's thumbnail (Layer 1) to put a selection around just your photo.

Step Four

Go under the Edit menu and choose Stroke. For Width choose 1 pixel, for Location choose Center, for Color choose a light gray, and click OK to put a thin gray stroke around your photo. Press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect. Now, press M to switch to the Rectangular Marquee tool and draw a selection that's slightly larger than your photo.

Step Five

Press the letter D to set your Foreground color to black, and then go under the Edit menu and choose Stroke. Enter 2 pixels for Width, leave the Location set to Center, and click OK to add a thin black stroke around your selection. Press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect. To finish off the project, add type using the Type tool (T). The gallery name is set in the font Trajan Pro, the location is set in Minion Pro, and the artist's name and numbering is set in Dear Joe Italic with the Opacity lowered to 50% in the Layers palette.