Mix-up montage

Claire Gillo makes a disjointed portrait by mixing up the angles

Before you try this yourself, go and get some inspiration from the Cubist, Surrealist and abstract artists and photographers of the 20th Century: the likes of Picasso and Dali. They will help you get the right look and feel for your image. Study their works to see which parts of their images they reveal or hide to create an abstract feeling with still-identifiable features.

I only used one photo for this project, but you could do it with several. I opted to use a square/rectangle shape, but you could use another shape. A triangle or circle motif could also look effective.

If you find a part of your image looks pixellated when you enlarge it, open your starting image, then reduce the size by half (Image > Image Size). Save this image separately from the full-size version and keep both open. Start working with the reduced-size image, then instead of duplicating the background layer in step 1, import the full-size image across.

1 Duplicate the layer

Open your starting image and duplicate the Background Layer. (Rightclick the layer in the Layers Panel and select Duplicate Layer.) Next go to the Rectangle Tool (or Custom Shape if you want to use another shape) and draw a small square or rectangle on your image. This automatically goes in as a new layer.

2 Create a Clipping Mask

Move the duplicated Background layer above the newly created Rectangle layer. Right-click on the layer and select Create Clipping Mask. Next, choose the Move Tool, press Ctrl/Cmd+T to bring up the Transform tools and enlarge the image to zoom in on one part (like an eye or an ear). You can play around with the scale and position of the image in the square.

3 Keep repeating and build

To move the shape around the image, make sure both layers are selected and use the Move Tool. It’s then a case of repeating the steps until you have a final abstract image you’re happy with. At the end stage, you can convert your image to black and white by adding a Black & White Adjustment layer or tweaking the Curves settings.