I’ve featured what I’ve always called ‘Geometric Photo Collages’ on my site numerous times before in inspiration showcases and tutorials. It turns out they’re actually known as Polyscapes in the design community, which is a fitting name considering they’re a combination of polygon shapes and landscape or cityscape photographs. I always have fun creating these images, so I jumped at the opportunity to produce a fresh tutorial on the topic. In today’s step by step guide I’ll take you through the process of creating an abstract polyscape in Adobe Photoshop. The final effect is achieved with just a few simple techniques, so hopefully this will be a great one for beginners to experiment with.
The image I’ll be creating as part of this tutorial combines the photographs of rural Lochearnhead and a contrasting cityscape. Polyscapes often make use of beautiful landscape images, or even pictures from outer space. These photos are then cut and pasted into a digital collage, using Photoshop’s editing tools rather than scissors and glue. The addition of geometric shapes add an abstract element to the artwork, I’m using a mix of squares, circles and triangles. Follow these steps to recreate this design, or experiment with different assets to achieve a unique result every time!
Begin by finding a base photograph to work with. I used the wonderful Unsplash.com to find this landscape photograph of Lochearnhead by Drew Collins. Open the image in Photoshop and centre two guides on the screen. The method I prefer is to Select All (CMD+A, or CTRL+A on Windows), right click and select Transform Selection, then drag out guides from the rulers and snap them into place onto the selection handles.
Great tutorial mister Chris, thanks a lot.
Thank you very much!
Great tutorial, I’ve learned a lot. Thank you!
Great! Thanks Margie
I’m a bit of a Photoshop newbie, so the instructions were sometimes a bit vague, but I managed to figure things out, and created a pretty striking image. Thanks Chris!
Hi Anastasia, I will see what I can do :). Link me to your design if you wish to share
A very nice funny tutorial. I learn some new tricks.
Thank You
Thank you Garder. I’m glad you learnt something new!
A very nice tutorial. Thank you very much!!!
Thanks monique!
this tutorials is great one for beginners (like me). With this one and the futuristic neon one, i will create an amazing invitation card for the Vzug party.
Thanks a lot
I’m glad you found the tutorials useful and let me know how your invitation card turns out!
Great tutorial. It’s always good to learn something new :)
Thanks Tom, it’s great you learnt something new!
Hi Chris, thank you so much for doing these tutorials – this one is awesome. Curves are hard to master! Mine end up all over the place…
Hi jael, I’m glad you like the tutorials! I’m sure you will master the curves soon! :)
Merci Chris, c’est intéressant et très bien expliqué.
J’essaierai de faire d’autres ” polyscapes ” avec des images différentes mais en suivant votre tutoriel, qui est comme toujours bien détaillé.
Merci !
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/923/sthdpM.jpg
Thank you! I’m glad to hear you find the tutorials interesting and clear to follow :)
Nice in depth tutorial – Keep it up!
Thank you Silas!
This was very helpful&cool thank you very much :)
Pleased to hear you found it helpful!
Hi Chris I really love this tutorial. Pls I wanna download AI, can you please help me with that. Thanks. Reply me via my email: michaelayodele24@yahoo.com