White grid patterns

This is a quick and relatively easy way to cover your image with colored squares of varying degrees of shading and equal in size; something you may have seen in magazines. These grid patterns are great for creating both a stylish image/graphic and for use as templates to lay out the text

I'll start with the image seen here:

The first thing you will want to do is turn on the rulers, and set them up to your liking in the preferences if they are not already.

Next create a new layer… name it if you so choose.

For creating grids, Photoshop has a great pair of tools that suite the need nicely. First, select the Single Row Marquee Tool with the feather set to 0 for nice, clean lines.

Using the ruler on the left, create a selection part way down the page and fill the selection in the new layer with Black. Create a new layer, move down a bit farther, and fill it with Black. Repeat the process until you have the number of lines you want to distribute vertically down the image.

Link all the line layers together. Now you will want to distribute these evenly, as sometimes the eye can play tricks on you. Go to Select>All and then open the Layers menu. Select Distribute Linked>Vertical Centers. The lines will snap into place before your eyes. (Thanks for the tip, Colin!)

Merge the line layers together.

Create a new layer and select the Single Column Marquee Tool. Repeat the process above, only working across the page this time. When you get to the point where you want to evenly distribute the lines, link the line layers, Select>All, and go to Layer>Distribute Linked>Horizontal Centers.

Merge all the grid line layers, vertical and horizontal, together. Name the layer grid.

Now that the image is mapped out, you can easily create the white/shaded areas. Create a new layer called boxes. Select the Magic Wand tool and, in the grid layer, click inside a few squares at random.

Now just go to the boxes layer and fill those squares (White) with a reduced opacity. Select a few more squares, return to the boxes layer, reduce or increase the opacity as you desire. Do this 3 times or so, varying the opacity all 3 times. When you are done, shut off the grid layer and dress up the image with text as needed.