A quick guide to creating diptyches and triptyches in Photoshop CS 3 and a nifty tip for visually tying the images together.

Browsing on Flickr a few weeks ago I came across a beautiful set of diptyches. Why do I like them so much? I think it’s because there’s a visual resonance between two wonderful photos that share a mood. Together, they become an object of beauty, a work of art that is greater than it’s parts.

Or perhaps it’s just because I’m not used to seeing photos juxtaposed in this way. Take a look at one of my favourites and see what you think.

These photos inspired me to try my hand at making some diptyches (and triptyches) of my own. The first thing was to choose images that not only go went together but enhanced each other. This is a very personal decision, and I looked for photos whose colours and tones complemented each other well.

This is what I came up with:

I took these photos in Colonia del Sacramento, a beautiful colonial town in the south of Uruguay.  I wanted to convey something of the dreamlike, mysterious atmosphere I found there.

These photos were taken in Chascomus, a small colonial town in the country some 120km from Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. I took a lot of close-ups of flowers and architectural details.

Make Your Own Diptych or Triptych

Combining photos to make your own diptych or triptych is pretty easy with photoshop:

• Make all the photos exactly the same height.
• Choose one of the photos.
• Set the background colour to white.
• Image -> Canvas Size
• Set the width to the combined width of both (or all three) photos. Click the middle arrow on the left hand side of the anchor and press OK.
• Copy one of the other photos and paste it on top of the first photo.
• Do the same with the third photo if you’re making a triptych.
• Line the photos up with the move tool until no white spaces are showing, then flatten the image to save space and save the photo under a new name.

I found it took some juggling of different combinations before I found the arrangements I liked best.

Now, one last tip to draw the photos together:

• Draw an oval with the elliptical marquee tool (see the diagram below).  
• Select -> Refine Edge
• Set feather to 250 pixels and adjust the contract/expand slider until you have a selection that looks something like the red area in the diagram below. Press OK.
• Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Levels
• Move the middle slider to the right to gently darken the edges of the triptych (or diptych). This technique is based on the darkroom technique of darkening the edges of a print to draw the eye towards the centre.
• When you’re happy, flatten the image and save.

What do you think of this technique? Send me the links to your diptyches and triptyches and I’ll post them here. Share your comments below.

Links to Triptyches

Andrew McConnochie

 
All photos Copyright © Andrew Gibson. All the photos are availabe for use under Rights Managed Licenses.. Please contact me to ask for permission to use in any way.