How to create a grid quickly and easily with Photoshop

Part One: Preparing a grid for your reference photo.

First thing you need to do is find the width of your reference image. In my case it's 1024px.

Because I wanted 10 squares 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.

1024/10 = 102.4

Because you can't have .4 pixels I rounded this down to 102.

Open up a new document and set the width and height to 102 pixels.

Unlock the background layer by double clicking it. Click the little F at the bottom of the layers palette to open up the layer style window. Apply these settings.

Next go to Edit > Define Pattern. Give it the name Grid and click OK

Go to your reference image and 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.

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 now 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!

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.

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.

I hope this was helpful, if you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me.

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