To make a torn-paper collage in Artfkt for Mac, stack two or three pictures, open the gaps in the upper picture so the picture below shows through, and cut another picture into fragments. Paper-colored shapes can sit on top as scraps.

Torn Strips and Cut Paper each fragment one image. They do not cut a subject out of a background, and they do not mask another layer. Artfkt runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 13 or later. The free collection demo stays on one image and does not include the Collage collection, these effects, or shapes.

Place the pictures

Download the room PNG (1200 × 1600), the plant PNG (1200 × 1600), and the cup PNG (720 × 900). They are drawings made for this exercise. Use your own pictures the same way. Large shapes survive the tears and cuts better than small detail.

A drawn room with a blue window, a brown table, a red circle, and a dark blue rectangle.
The lower picture. The tears will open onto this.

Start a new session and add the room first. An empty canvas takes that image’s size, so the collage becomes 1200 × 1600. Leave Scale (%) at 100 and Angle (°) at 0. Set the canvas background to #c4b49a. The full-frame pictures cover that background until a gap is transparent.

Add the plant next, then the cup. Leave the plant centered. For the cup, enter X position 180 and Y position -220.

A drawn green plant with a red dot, on a cream field.
The plant is an opaque cream field. It hides the room until the tears open.
The green plant and a blue cup on cream, before any torn or cut treatment.
All three pictures, before a collage effect. The room is underneath the plant.

Leave Shared animation off and playback paused at the start. Treat each poster layer with its own effect stack is the same layer idea with a different finish.

Tear the plant so the room shows through

Select the plant. Search the catalog for Torn Strips and add it to that layer. Turn Animate: Torn Strips off. With Animate on, Scale follows playback instead of the number you enter.

  • Scale: 0.220
  • Angle: 6.00
  • Tear roughness: 0.16
  • Separation: 0.09
  • Paper: #efe6d4
  • Paper opacity: 0%
  • Transparency: Cut out
  • Seed: 37
The plant torn into wavy strips, with the room’s window and table showing in the gaps.
Torn Strips on the plant. The room shows through the gaps. The cup is still whole.

Cut out at 0% opacity opens those paper gaps onto the layer below. Reveal image at the same opacity shows this picture’s own color in the gaps instead. Keep the paper color; only the opacity and the transparency mode change what the gap reveals. The effect still does not trace a subject or hide part of another layer.

Cut the cup into fragments

Select the cup. Add Cut Paper and turn Animate: Cut Paper off.

  • Scale: 0.160
  • Scatter: 0.12
  • Fragment rotation: 10.00
  • Paper margin: 0.060
  • Paper: #f3ead8
  • Seed: 19

Leave Paper fully opaque. This picture’s own ground is the same cream, so the margins continue that paper. The fragments shift and turn; they do not become a sticker of the cup with the cream removed.

The blue cup broken into cream-edged fragments over the torn plant and room.
Cut Paper on the cup. The plant’s tears are unchanged.

Add paper-colored shapes

Choose Add → Shape twice. Shapes are desktop-only. Set the first scrap to a rectangle, 300 × 180, fill #efe6d4, X -360, Y 560. Set the second to 220 × 220, fill #c4493a, X 390, Y 480. Leave both strokes off, scale at 100%, and rotation at 0.

A cream rectangle and a red square laid over the torn plant and the cut cup.
Two flat shapes on top of the pictures. They are not a mask.

Export a PNG

Use Quick Export and choose PNG. These examples match the 1200 × 1600 canvas. Another size is available within the limits of the renderer on your Mac. The PNG is the finished collage. It is not a set of cut files for each scrap.

One expanded effect is remembered while you switch layers. That open state is not saved with the project. This recipe does not use a keyframe timeline.

Read why the studio lives on the desktop.

How this example was made

The three pictures were drawn for this exercise with AI assistance. The treatments shown were rendered by Artfkt’s production renderer at 1200 × 1600, with Animate off and playback at the start. A separate check confirmed that Torn Strips with Paper at 0% and Transparency set to Cut out shows a shape underneath, and that Reveal image shows the treated picture instead. These settings describe the pictured example. They are not permanent defaults, and rendering can vary by device.