Calendar Grid Tutorial (PS)

Hello! I’ve had a request for instructions to make a calendar grid like I made for my February calendar earlier this year.

Credits (for LO shown) here.

I do not use Photoshop Elements, but I believe you’ll need the full version of Photoshop for this tutorial as it is primarily based on paths. If you have PSE you could make a calendar using a similar approach by drawing the grid with rectangles with an inside stroke. Let me know if you need instructions for this method.

You can easily adjust the size of the file and the grid as needed. Following this tutorial will create a grid for a 12×12 LO with approximately 1 margins on the left & right sides.

Start by creating a new 12 x 12 in file at 300dpi. Now create 2 guides to make this process easier. Just click on the left ruler and drag a guide over to the 1 inch marker. Then click on the top ruler and drag down to about the 2.25 in marker.

Select the rectangle tool from your toolbar. You should have these options at the top of your screen:

See the three little boxes together with the middle one selected? They are Shape Layers, Paths, Fill Pixels. Choosing Paths will allow you to draw a transparent grid so go ahead and click on Paths. Now scoot on over to the right and click the little down arrow. Enter the following options in the pop-up box:

{ You may wonder where I got these crazy numbers! They are: 10in / 7 columns = 1.4286 in width. 1.4286 x 5 rows = 7.1430 in height. Here’s where you can adapt this grid to whatever size you want. Just change the starting number for the new overall width and recalculate. }

Zoom in to 100% (so you can be more accurate) and make sure you can see where your guides cross. Make sure you still have the rectangle tool selected and click once where right on the intersection of the guides. You should now have a single column. Place your cursor on the upper right corner of the column and click again. Repeat 5 more times and you should end up with all 7 columns like this:

Now we’re basically going to repeat this process for the rows. You would think the width of the rows would be 10 in, but because of the way we’re overlapping the paths, they’re just a smidge shorter. Change your rectange options to this:

{ If you changed the size of your calendar above, just use the selction tool and the info palette to find out the exact width of your grid. }

Starting in the upper left corner of the grid (the guide intersection where we started before), click to add a row. Move down to the lower left corner of the new row and click again. Repeat 2 more times and you will now have 5 rows in your grid like this:

.

Now to add the short row at the top for the days and the large row at the bottom for you to decorate. Go back to your rectangle options and change the height to 0.3 in. Now here’s the trick to adding the top row. You might wonder if you’re just supposed to guess how far above the grid to click. Click on the 1 in guide approximately where the the box should go and do not let go of the mouse. Drag the box up or down until it’s aligned with the top of your grid, then release the mouse.

For the tall row at the bottom change the height to 1.5 in and click on the lower left corner of the grid. You should now have a completed calendar grid like this:

.

Now open up the paths palette.

You should see your grid in the thumbnail. Double click on the name work path and rename it. *Important* If you choose not to rename your path it will be much easier to accidentally delete it. Next time you created a new path in this file it will be gone. So, rename your path.

Now we’re going to add our grid to our LO by stroking the path. If you hover over the 2nd icon (the one selected in my image) it should be marked Stroke path with brush. On the toolbar choose a small hard brush and set your foreground color to whatever color you would like your grid to be. I used a 10px hard brush with black for this screen shot. For the LO above I used pink.

Make sure you’re on an empty layer in your file. On the paths palette click the stroke button. Your calendar path will now be drawn in the color of your choice. Now you see how the calendar path is still selected in the path palette? (Dark blue highlight) Click anywhere in the empty gray space below the path to deselect it. Here’s your finished calendar grid ready for you to dress up:

.

Make sure to save your finished psd file so you can use the grid over and over again! This may look tedious but once you’re comfortable with paths you’ll find them invaluable.