How To Create A Photo Cube

How to create a Photo Cube.

I created a photo cube with a calendar and five photos two years ago and gave them as Christmas presents. I’m not rich by any means so I give gifts that I make for Christmas and other gift giving occasions.

The photo cube came from seeing the acrylic cubes you can buy to add photos to and use on desks etc. or give as gifts. I figured why not make one of my own that no one else had.

I had to decide just how big it was going to be so I made a couple of different sizes, one at four inches on the side. That one was too big and flimsy to work with the paper thickness I had. So I redrew it as two inches to the side and that worked best since I decided to use photo paper made for a normal printer which is 8 ½” x 11”, the original 4” x 4” I printed out on the large format printer I have which is a 24” format printer. The below example is the final result of my experimenting which gives you a 2” x 2” opening on all six sides.

After drawing the cube, yes I know it does not look like a cube the way it is laid out but when you fold it the cube is there, I then added photos that I picked out for each individual I was going to give one to for Christmas. These five photos are the ones I will use for the example cube.

To add the photos you open each photo that you want to use for the cube in Photoshop. Then according to the size your photo is, we will use the size 8” x 10” as most prints are that size if you are using a home printer, you click (in Photoshop) Image then Image Size or Control-Alt-I. When the box appears you click on Width or Height to create a 2” x 2.5” size according to whether your photo is in landscape or portrait format, I know it will not fit in the 2” x 2” frame of your cube exactly but we are going to copy and paste the 2” x 2.5” photo into a new 2” x 2” photo. After you copy the 2” x 2.5” photo you go to File, New or Control-N, when the window pops up for the new photo you change the size from 2” x 2.5” to 2” x 2” now you paste into this to get the size you need for your cube opening. You may have to move the photo a bit to center the photo.

Whew, O. K. now we have a photo that is 2” x 2”. Use the Magic Wand to Select All, copy the new 2” x 2” photo to your Clipboard. Then you select the open file that has your cube frame in it. Using the Magic Wand you click in one of the openings in the cube frame and paste the 2” x 2” photo you just created into it by going to Image, Paste Into or Control-Shift-V and now you have a photo in your cube opening. For the other five openings you do the same for each opening. Of course as you add the new photos you need to rotate them to fit the cube so they are not all jumbled up and look wrong when you see the finished cube. Your finished cube should look like the photo below.

To assemble the cube you cut it out along the outline, fold on the edges of the photos and flaps; add double sided tape on the inside edges to create the finished cube. Oh, make sure when you fold and add the double sided tape your photos are on the outside as all you will have if you don’t is a blank white cube.

If anyone would like a copy of my cube frame email me on here adding an email address where I can send you a copy of the frame in either jpeg, PSD, Tiff or any other format that your graphics program will accept. You can also email me (or if you are not a member of Gather) at SilverTonguedOne(at)Hotmail.com...if you email me here put "Photocube Frame" in the Subject line or I may delete it thinking it is junk mail.

Below are some of the steps I use in adding the photos to the cube: