How do I make grids on Photoshop?

Cowboy Bebop

I have some arial photos that I plan to make a couple DnD maps out of,but I'm having trouble making a grid layer on photoshop to put over it.So does any one know how to do it?

i n c u b u s

Go to View, scrool down to Show, then click grid.

Szechuanosaurus

You'll still need to then manually draw the grid if you want it to print out, or be viewable on the file outside of photoshop.

Sinter

I've always had (what I think is) a good method for drawing gridlines. This method uses the "Define Pattern" feature to allow you to use the paint bucket to make a grid:

1. Create a new, empty layer in your image
2. Select the "Rectangular Marquee" tool
3. Select "Fixed Size" for the marquee style, and enter in the size in pixels you want the grid to be (for example, if you want the grid squares to be 20 pixels by 20 pixels, enter "20px" in the Width and Height fields)
4. Create a rectangular selection somewhere (anywhere, it doesn't matter) on the new layer
5. Fill the rectangle with White (Edit >> Fill)
6. Now, using the arrow keys, nudge the selection down and right by 1 pixel, and press the delete key
7. Using the arrow keys again, nudge the selection up and left by 1 pixel to it's original location

** The steps up until this point are just used to create a "L" shape that we'll use to define a pattern **

8. Now comes the magic. With the "L" of white still selected, go to "Edit >> Define Pattern". You should see a window that appears as below. Feel free to name this pattern whatever you want, and click OK.
9. Now that you have defined that pattern, you can delete that whole new layer you were working on.

** The steps above define how to actually define the pattern you created **


(note how the "L" of white is visible on the left and top edges in the image above)

10. Now, create a new layer where your grid will be placed
11. Select the "Paint Bucket" tool
12. Select "Pattern" from the drop down (the default selection is "foreground"), and in the "Mode" drop-down, select the pattern you previously defined.
13. Just click the Paint Bucket anywhere on the image, and watch as your grid is filled in automatically!

From this point, your grid is created in black and white. You can manipulate the layer overlay, or even remove the black color, or many other actions to acheive your desired effect.

I hope this was helpful. I promise that the actions of creating the grid are quicker than reading my instructions here

-Sinter

Feral

There are free plugins that will do this for you. Just Google "photoshop grid plugin" and you'll find a few.

Rankenphile

far faster method is to build your grid in illustrator and just import it over

Jasconius

Rankenphile wrote: »

far faster method is to build your grid in illustrator and just import it over

This man speaks the truth.

Grids in Illustrator are ridiculously easy.

1) Draw line, alt-click, drag X distance

2) Ctrl+D

3) Repeat 2 till satisfied

4) Goto 1 and do the other dimension

Then you can just SmartObject it over to Photoshop to tinker.

Well there may even be a grid tool in Illustrator I don't know, but the above take all of 5 seconds.

TheUnsane1

Sinter wrote: »

I've always had (what I think is) a good method for drawing gridlines. This method uses the "Define Pattern" feature to allow you to use the paint bucket to make a grid:

1. Create a new, empty layer in your image
2. Select the "Rectangular Marquee" tool
3. Select "Fixed Size" for the marquee style, and enter in the size in pixels you want the grid to be (for example, if you want the grid squares to be 20 pixels by 20 pixels, enter "20px" in the Width and Height fields)
4. Create a rectangular selection somewhere (anywhere, it doesn't matter) on the new layer
5. Fill the rectangle with White (Edit >> Fill)
6. Now, using the arrow keys, nudge the selection down and right by 1 pixel, and press the delete key
7. Using the arrow keys again, nudge the selection up and left by 1 pixel to it's original location

** The steps up until this point are just used to create a "L" shape that we'll use to define a pattern **

8. Now comes the magic. With the "L" of white still selected, go to "Edit >> Define Pattern". You should see a window that appears as below. Feel free to name this pattern whatever you want, and click OK.
9. Now that you have defined that pattern, you can delete that whole new layer you were working on.

** The steps above define how to actually define the pattern you created **


(note how the "L" of white is visible on the left and top edges in the image above)

10. Now, create a new layer where your grid will be placed
11. Select the "Paint Bucket" tool
12. Select "Pattern" from the drop down (the default selection is "foreground"), and in the "Mode" drop-down, select the pattern you previously defined.
13. Just click the Paint Bucket anywhere on the image, and watch as your grid is filled in automatically!

From this point, your grid is created in black and white. You can manipulate the layer overlay, or even remove the black color, or many other actions to acheive your desired effect.

I hope this was helpful. I promise that the actions of creating the grid are quicker than reading my instructions here

-Sinter

While this works a much better way yo go about it is to use the stroke command instead of fill to outline the 20x20 area in black or white (doesn't matter you can always use ctrl+i to invert the layer) then change the selection to be 19x19 and move it to any corner and hit delete. this makes the same L shape much faster and is more convient unless you are looking to fill the grid blocks instead of the lines.(even then you can use the line pattern then select the layer, invert the selection(ctrl+shift+i) and use fill, then invert the selection again and delete the grid lines.)

also these patterns will be saved for future use on other images.

Cowboy Bebop

Thanks for the help guys I've got it now.

Cheers