STEP BY STEP THROW SOME SHAPES

Use the Polygon tool and shadows to blend shapes with your portraits

01 MAKE A TRIANGLE

Open your portrait and grab the Polygon tool from the toolbar. You can set a number of sides for the polygon in the options at the top. Set it to 3 (the Polygon tool makes it easier to plot equilateral triangles than the Triangle tool). Hold Shift and drag to make a triangle.

02 COPY AND ROTATE

Grab the Move tool, hold Alt and drag the triangle to make a copy. Position it elsewhere. Hold Shift and drag the rotation control at the top of the bounding box to rotate the triangle 180 degrees. Continue making more copies, resizing and positioning them.

03 GROUP AND RASTERIZE

Grab the Rectangle tool and plot thin lines between the triangles. When happy, highlight the bottom shape layer, then shift-click on the top-most shape layer. Hit Cmd/ctrl+g to group them. Press Cmd/ctrl+j to copy the group, then right-click it and Rasterize.

04 ADD A BACKGROUND

Click the tick to hide the group below, then drag the rasterized layer on top of the portrait layer, so that it indents to the right side of the layer thumbnail. Next, make a new layer and drag it to the bottom of the stack. Go to Edit>fill and fill it with a dark grey.

05 MAKE A SHADOW

Highlight the portrait layer and click the FX button in the Layers Panel. Tick Outer Shadow. Use the settings to add a shadow effect to the shapes. Duplicate the portrait layer with Cmd/ctrl+j. Enlarge it slightly, then highlight the duplicate shapes layer and offset it.

06 BUILD IT UP

Continue duplicating and offsetting the image layer (with attached triangles), experimenting with position. Finally, highlight the top layer, click the Create Adjustment Layer icon and choose Curves. Plot a curve line to flatten the highlights and boost contrast.