Someone, at another forum, request a tutorial on how to do a blend using polaroids so I decided to make this tutorial. We're going to be making a blend that has a polaroid stock image in it. The stock image that we're going to use is
this one. The stock was taken from SXC. This is what the final result will look like:



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1. Take the stock which I've already cleaned for you. Open a new canvas in Photoshop or whatever you're using. Photoshop: File > New or CTRL + N. Make a canvas that is 743x424 pixels. Click for screenshot.

2. Take this background, copy it and paste it onto your new canvas. The original is a smaller size that I've taken from I don't know who (someone LJ probably), duplicated, rotated, added some noise, sharpened and, now, you get this. Anyways. Take the polaroid I just gave you and put it on top of this background. Sharpen it one time by selecting it in the layers palette (if the palette isn't already on yoru right side menu go to Window> Layers) and going to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen.

3. Duplicate your stock polaroid. Set the second layer on Multiply 100% and the first layer on Normal. Then select the first layer, go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur. Screenshot of Values to insert. Merge the two layers. This is the new polaroid. It looks a lot more clean and smooth.

4. Take an image of anything. Resize it and cut it to fit the black square on the polaroid. I'm going to use this image of a model. Here are some good ones if you can't find one for yourself: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Anyways, take your image. Duplicate it. Set the 2nd layer on Screen, Opacity 100%. Or Soft Light might work as well. However, it all depends on the image you're using so play around if you're image doesn't look as good as mine. Select the 2nd duplicate of your image, sharpen it once or twice. Then select the first copy of the image, go to Filter > Blur > Soft Blur. Use the same values as the ones in here.

5. Now we're going to add some color. You can turn your image black and white or you can add some selective coloring. I'll add some selective coloring to give this some color. I'm not going to give values however, as I hate selective coloring. This is what mine looks like so far.

6. Place your polaroid anywhere on the canvas. Take the following brushes and place them behind the polaroid. To turn an image into a brush, open the image into a new canvas, go to Edit > Define Brush and you'll get a brush. Since this brush is a PNG, you can just save it, open it in photoshop and drag and drop it behind the polaroid. If you want to make that into a brush. Duplicate the base PNG, put white background behind the brush (by making a new layer). Merge the layers and then turn it into a brush. Put this brush too behind as well. This is what mine looks like so far.

7.Take this flower and put it on the left bottom corner of the polaroid. The flower I use is black and white one but I've added a little blob of orange to match the tone of the model's face. So if the coloring of the flower doesn't match the colors in your image just turn it black and white (select the layer and hit CTRL + censored + U). Then use a soft, round drop shadow brush and add any color you want. The select the layer of the drop shadow brush on Color Dodge or something else that'll look good. If you don't have the drop shadow brush, here it is

*Note* If you use my flower in anything else but a graphic (blend, icon, wallpaper, collage, signature) please credit me.

8. So far. I'm going to use the font Phoenix which you can find here @ dafont.com. I'm going to type using all uppercase, size 24 pt, set on sharp.

9. Add this text brush above the main text. This is mine.

10. You can leave it the way it is right now or you can cut some of it, which is what I'm going to do. I don't like how much empty space there is. I cut a little, copied, pasted and added a 10 pixel border on each size. This is the final version.

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Textures from http://www.from-yesterday.org/plutonium