In this step by step tutorial, I'm going to show how to make moodboards using Pinterest and Photoshop. Creating moodboards or stylescapes is an essential part of the design process. And while Pinterest is a great tool for collecting inspiration into boards and sections, we want to take this and make a more refined moodboard to show clients and solidify our vision. So, we're going to be using Photoshop to construct our moodboard.
To save time, we will be using Pin Toolbox - Pinterest Board Downloader, which is a Google Chrome browser extension for Pinterest Power users. It has been developed specially for designers and creative professionals. It lets us download all the full size images from any board (even with 1000s of pins) to a single folder on our computer in just a few clicks. If you use Pinterest in your design workflow, you're going to find it saves you a lot of time versus downloading manually.
Steps to download a Pinterest board using Pin Toolbox
- To download your Pinterest board, first open Chrome on your Mac or PC. Then add Pin Toolbox to your Chrome browser from the Google Chrome Webstore.
- Click ‘Add to Chrome’ on the Chrome Webstore page.
- Follow the instructions on the welcome page - press the thumbtack icon to keep the extension in the menubar, for easy access.
- Open Pinterest in your browser and sign in with your credentials
- Go to the board you want to download
- Press on the red ‘Pin Toolbox’ icon in Chrome
- Press extract images (upgrade to Pro membership to download over 15 images at a time). This will take a few minutes.
- Select the pins and sections you wish to download
- Press 'Download as .zip' – this will download all the images and videos into one folder, with the files named and numbered for easy organization.
- In your downloads folder you will have a file called ‘Digital Aesthetic (Feb 27 2024) (450).zip’ or similar. Double click on it to unzip. Or right click and press 'Unzip'.
Importing our images into Photoshop
With your images downloaded in one neat folder, it's time to make our mood board in Photoshop. You can use any size you like, but a 1080 x 720 px is what I like. Drag your images from Finder into Photoshop, then resize and arrange them to your liking. I found it was interesting to overlap images for a layered effect.
Finishing Touches
Photoshop is chock full of tools to express yourself. Cut out and layer elements, creating a dynamic and cohesive mood board. At the end, you can crop your canvas to a square for a clean, focused moodboard.
If you want to print a Pinterest board, check out our How to Print a Pinterest Board guide. Or subscribe to our YouTube channel - we're adding new tutorials every week.