How to Fold a Corner

by Christine Gundersen
Using PS or PSP

In this lesson, I will be using Photoshop CS3 for my screen shots, but the concepts are VERY universal across scrapbooking programs. (I will make notes, where PSP varies from PS.)

There are several ways to fold a corner, depending on the angle you want to use. For this tutorial, I will demonstrate a method that will work regardless of the angle you choose.

You can fold a corner on a paper, mat or photo, but we will use a BG paper.

Choose the Polygonal Lasso Tool (Freehand lasso tool with point to point for the selection type in PSP,) draw a triangle around your corner. Be sure to complete the selection. You should now have marching ants around the corner. See Figure 1.

PS: Stay on the polygonal tool and right click within the selected area, then choose Layer via Cut. This will put your triangle on its own layer. Figure 2

PSP users: After you have the marching ants, switch to the Pick Tool and click anywhere on the BG paper, outside of the selection. This will cut a triangle out and put it on a different layer. The problem is you still have the whole BG paper underneath, so use your magic wand set on a match mode of opacity, select the triangle on the triangle layer, switch to the BG layer and hit delete on the keyboard.


At this point, you may have heard to rotate your triangle 180 degrees or flip horizontally then vertically, but this really only works if you have done a 45 degree angle and I will show you why. (I made the fold lighter so it is easier to see.) Notice how on the original selection, the short side of the triangle is part of the VERTICAL edge of your paper. If you rotate the cut triangle 180 degrees, the short side comes off of the HORIZONTAL edge of your paper. If this doesn't make sense, try it on a real piece of paper. Ü So to preserve realism, we are going to do something else.

In PS, use Ctrl+T to transform, move the center pivot point, see the circled center in Figure 4, to the bottom right corner of your bounding box. We need it on one of the folding corners of the triangle and lucky for us, this is one. Ü

Right click and choose flip vertically, then rotate the triangle from that corner until it is lined up with the cut edge of your BG paper. (Figure 5 & 6)


PSP users: You are going to do the same thing, using the Pick tool. As far as I know though, there is not a way to move the pivot point, but if someone knows one, give a holler. So just zoom in and make sure your triangle and the cut edge lines up.

The rest is up to you
. Use the dodge and burn tools to add highlights and shadows, as desired. You can also stitch down the corner, add a staple, brad or other element, if you would like. Figure 7.

The samples used in this tutorial are from my Lotus Blossom page kit.

©2009 Christine Gundersen