Oh wow,...
PS Polaroid Picture
1) Assuming you have Photoshop open and running, open the file Ctrl + O you wish to use. I will be using this adorable 300px by 225px picture of my puppy.
2) First you will need to set your background color to white #FFFFFF by double-clicking the little swatch on your tools menu. Make sure you are setting the background and not the foreground color.
3) Next we need to pad the canvas to create the polaroid border. To do this select Image >> Canvas Size when the box comes up add 30px to both your image width and height. (You can change this number if you don't like the thickness of the border.) Make sure to leave the current canvas centered. If you don’t click the Anchor section it should be centered. You want the anchor to be in the middle, like so.
4) Now you will need to pad just the bottom of the canvas to create the polaroid look. So again select Image >> Canvas Size but this time add 40px to only the Height of the image. This time set the anchor point to be the top center square; that will make the canvas extend at the bottom.
5) Next add a caption to the space you just added. Use the text tool
to write whatever you want. You can find all kinds of cool free fonts that will make it look like you used a Sharpie to write on your Polaroid, but Tahoma or some other default will work just fine.6) Flatten your image by selecting Layer >> Flatten Image
7) Create a new file Ctrl + N and make it at least 100px wider and higher than your current file with a transparent background. My new file is 430px by 395px. Drag your flattened image to the new file using the Move tool
put the image in the middle of the new file. You can now close the first image file without saving.8) Now make sure you have the image layer selected as the working layer and not the original background layer 1. Press the Add Layer Style icon
at the bottom of the layers palette and select Drop Shadow hit OK. This is what you should have at this point
9) Now you will need to rotate the image a bit to create a more realistic look. Select Edit >> Transform >> Rotate drag your image to one side or the other to rotate it to your satisfaction.
10) Last step crop your image. Using the Rectangle marquee tool
select your image so that you can crop out any extra space around it like this
Now just select Image >> Crop to crop out the unused space. Now just save your image as a [GIF] and that's it you have turned your image into a "Polaroid Picture". Below is my finished image.
