Club Movie Poster

Start off with a new document with these dimensions. Since we're at 72 resolution that means we can only output this for web (Just so you know). You can get this .psd from the  iPSDirectory (or by signing up right now in the PSDer) where you can interact with it and understand it even more.

This is a great poster design and before you know it we'll get there pretty quick so follow along with my design process as I flow through this. This tutorial was captured 'live'.

We're creating a club poster that is uniquely similar to a certain (onesheet) movie poster which you may be able to guess (studio 54). Start out by getting several different source images in your file browser.

Here we want to focus on about 4 different people because we're going to put them into their own quarter of the design. All of these photos were taken by me and are in the ClubCast portfolio in the free images bonus cd (available with the Photoshop Designer Package).

After you open the file, make selections out of these images (easier said than done..). this may take a while but make sure you get a good selection (taught in my Basic Photoshop or Total Package training). Now drag each of these with the moVe tool into the document.

Create a new layer set folder and drag each of these layers into the folder for easier organization. Now you're going to do some layout work. If your background layer is locked drag it to the new layer icon and then drag the locked layer to the trash bin laden.

Press Ctrl/Cmd R to get your rulers (under the view menu). Now press Alt E:F or Ctrl T when on the new background layer to select it. Now you can drag down guidelines that will snap to the center. Do this for horizontal and for vertical to get your exact center. Now press 'Enter' to get rid of the transformation box on your still in progress club movie poster design.

Now you have split the design into perfect quarters; four different panels. Grab your rectangular marquee tool and drag from the corner of a quarter panel to the center as shown.

You are selecting this panel and then you need to create a new layer in the layers palette (do this 3 more times so you have a blank layer for each panel). Simply select each quarter panel making sure you are on a new layer each time in the layers palette and fill each quarter panel with a slightly different color. It's important to make sure that you are doing this on a different layer for each different panel in the club poster design.

Here is where you can start dragging and with 'snap' turned on in the View menu it will be easy to select each 1/4.

Just use a slightly different color for each fill layer. What you're doing is creating four different layers, essentially putting each of these panels onto their own independent layer. We are doing this so we can create a clipping group for each of our actors. I'm using different shades of red (with kind of a planned theme)

and we can change blending mode options later or whatever but by filling them with different colors you can tell that each one is separate.