3. Open another copy of the original photo and position it above the collage image in the layers palette. It will still need to be square, but it doesn't need to be as tightly cropped. Enlarge it to fill the canvas and apply a blending mode (these functions are found in the drop-down menu at the top of the Layers palette). Blending modes provide various effects, and they act as transparencies with adjustable opacities. Experiment with different modes until you achieve an effect you like. Don't be afraid to layer multiple copies of the photo on top of one another and apply a different blending mode to each layer. Here I used three different layers of the same photo with different blending modes set at varying opacities:

Layer 1: Hard Light 60%

Layer 2: Screen 31%

Layer 3: Linear Light 31%

Appeared in:

June 2009