I Need Your Ideas?

I am currently completing all of my coursework for my A-Levels and then will be starting revision for my exams, this is where you come in!

Doing coursework etc... doesn't leave me much time to keep on top of the website so...
If you have any ideas for a cool tutorial which I could do, or you have one that you have written yourself then either leave me a comment below or send me an email at stevie489@googlemail.com and then I will either create one or upload the one that you have written and leave all credit to you, if this goes well I will do this in the future as I think it will be the best way to get more and more tutorials on this website to help all of the Photoshop users that need it!

Hope to hear from you soon,
Steve

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Simple Web 2.0 Logo

This tutorial is very simple to complete but still gives a nice finish to a cool Web 2.0 style logo for a website etc…only takes around 5 minutes to complete and shows some good techniques which can be used in the future when designing other Web 2.0 Style objects.

Step 1: First of all open up a new document size around 500 x 500 and the background filled with black.

Step 2: Now choose the Type/Text Tool and write out the name of your website or the word you are going to use (I am using the word Photoshop as I normally do and the font “Century Gothic”), when it is written resize to the desired size and put it in the centre of the canvas as shown below:



Step 3: Now simply double click on the text layer and the blending options menu will appear use the settings as shown below to achieve the right outcome:

Outer Glow:



Gradient: (Other colours can be used, play around with different colours until you
get the ones your looking for)



Stroke:



When all the blending options are added click “OK” and you should end up with something similar to below:



Step 4: To finish just add some finishing touches like some light glistens for example and a reflection as shown how to do HERE and you will have an end product as shown below:

Finished Image:



If you have had any problems with this tutorial then don't hesitate to contact me and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

The PSD file is also available if anyone wants to know how to do something or what something looks like then email me at: stevie489@googlemail.com and I will happily mail it back.

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Using The Pen Tool - The Basics

This tutorial is more for the beginners of Photoshop on how to use the pen tool and what you can do with it, although some more advanced with Photoshop may also find this useful, it is just a quick tutorial today as I am currently working on a new WordPress layout for this website so I am quite occupied with that, but I will still be doing tutorials every other day whilst I am doing this.

Step 1: First of all find the image that you want to use in this tutorial; I have used a picture of a Buggati Veyron and open it up in Photoshop, now choose the pen tool on the left toolbar (as shown below) but before we use it I am going to explain what it does and the benefits of using it:

Original Image:


Pen Tool



The pen tool allows you to make “paths” which can be used to cut out certain parts of images or so that you can make a range of different shapes.

Advantages of Using the Pen Tool

The pen tool offers more flexibility over other tools (e.g. Polygonal Lasso Tool) because the pen tool not only creates anchor points but when you have clicked where you want the anchor point to be, if you hold down the button and drag you can create a curved shape which can be used to draw around curved objects.

Step 1 (Continued…): Now back to step 1, with the pen tool selected at the top of the window you will see the below toolbar which shows the settings of the pen which can be used, if you hover over each setting it will explain what they do, for now use the settings below and you can experiment whenever you want to:



Step 2: Now zoom into your image and click on the canvas around the edge of your chosen object, this is the starting point of your selection now when you click at the next point in your object notice that it makes another small square (You might notice you can’t click on the adjustment bar ends. That is, until you hold the CTRL key. When you hold the CTRL key, your cursor will change to a solid white arrow, the Direct Selection Tool. Now you can click on the adjustment bar ends and adjust the curve of your selection. Now try holding the ALT key. You should get a two-sided arrow when you mouse over your adjustment ends, the Convert Point Tool. Click and drag to adjust only one aspect of your curve. This is how you make sharp edges with your Pen Path.) Now keep clicking around the edge of your chosen object and remember if you want a curved line, click and hold and then drag in the direction of the curve.



Step 3: When you get the hang of it, it is really easy to use, once you have gone around the whole outer edge of your object join the starting point and ending point together, you will now have a “Path”

Step 4: Now right click in the path and choose “Make Selection” as shown below,



Step 5: This will bring up a menu showing some different settings, but leave this as default as they don’t need to be changed.



Step 6: With your path now selected you will see the crawling ants around the edge of your image, now when you choose the move tool you can see that your selection can be moved around etc…Now open up a new background in a new document and simply drag and drop your selection into it as shown below:

Crawling Ants:


Drag And Drop:


Step 7: You can now play around with different shadows and options to get just the right look and once I had done this I had something that looked similar to below:
(This final image does look rubbish but that was not the point of this tutorial, the point was to show you that there are other ways to extract an image rather than using the eraser or magic wand tool, if I had more time i would have made this final image look better, but it will do to illustrate my point)

Finished:



This tutorial was just the basics of using the Pen Tool but there are lots of other different things which it can be used for, so go and play around with it and see what you can create.

If you have any problems with this tutorial then don’t hesitate to leave me a comment or email me at: stevie489@googlemail.com and I will help you as much as I can.

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Simple Polaroid Design

This tutorial will teach you how to make a simple yet effective polaroid style image using shapes and standard images with a very nice end result, very easy to follow and understand.

Step 1: First of all make a new document size 500 x 500 and fill the background with default black.

Step 2: Now choose the “Rectangle Tool” and draw a fairly large white rectangle as shown below, and then right click this layer and choose “Rasterize Type”:



Step 3: Now choose the “Rectangular Marquee Tool” and draw a selection as shown below, once happy with your selection simply press delete and it should delete the selection and you will end up with a Polaroid shape:



Step 4: Now double click the Polaroid layer which should bring up the “Blending
Options” and use the settings below:



Step 5: To put a picture into the Polaroid simply find the picture you want and open it up in a new document, when this is done grab the move tool on the Polaroid document and drag and drop the Polaroid onto the image document as shown below:



Step 6: Now resize and position your Polaroid onto the image so that you are happy with the selection



Step 7: Now again grab the “Rectangular Marquee Tool” and select the inner part of the Polaroid image, with the original image selected choose the move tool and simply press CTRL +C and then CTRL + V to copy and paste the selected image, now go back to the original image layer and press delete to leave you with the image below:



Step 8: Next double click the selected part of the image layer and it will bring up the blending options now use the settings below:



Step 9: To finish simply choose the text tool and the font “Lucida Handwriting” and write out the title of the image on the whit space at the bottom of the Polaroid.

Final Image:



You can now make some more and compile them into an image like the one I have made below, very effective when displaying special photo’s e.g. holiday or baby photo’s.

Composition:



If you have had any problems with this tutorial then don't hesitate to contact me and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

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Logo Design and How To Showcase Your Work

This tutorial will give you some useful tips on how to create a professional looking logo using simple design techniques and how to showcase your work using basic Photoshop lighting options.

Showcasing Your Work:

Step 1: First of all create a new document sized 500 x 500, then choose the gradient tool and set the colours to: #000000, #49454d, and make sure that it is a “Radial Gradient” drag the gradient from the middle to one of the corners so the lighter colour is in the middle



Step 2: Now for the lights go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects and use the settings that are shown below:





You should now have something that looks like the image below:



Step 3: All good logos are a mix of text, colour, design, originality and often simplicity, the one that I created below was simply text and a couple of splatter brushes used to get the paint splatters:

Logo Design:

Step 3(a): First of all get the text tool and write your chosen text (if you are having more than one word then do them on separate layers so they can be easily re arranged if needed) now arrange the text in a way in which you think looks cool and eye catching, you can change the text settings like the spacing between letters etc… From using the options shown below:



Step 3(b): After playing around with the layout and colours of the text I finally found something I was happy with so then proceeded to make the paint splatters, to do this I used these set of brushes HERE and simply played around with the layout and colours again experimenting with different things and blending options etc…until I found something I was happy with (I used separate layers again for each splatter so they could easily be rearranged) as shown below is the result I got after about 30 minutes of messing around and changing my mind:



As you can see it is kind of simple but I feel the layout and colours that were chosen really stand out well and show a sense of professionalism and creativity (these are just my own opinions and I am going to be slightly biased as I did design it, but let me know what you think and if you decide to make a logo of your own based on my tips then please leave me comments on this post showing off your creativity)

Showcasing Your Work (Continued…)

Step 4: With all of the above completed it is time to finish off showcasing your work. To finish simply do a standard reflection on any words on the bottom (in my case the word “Tutorials”) as shown HERE, but instead of doing a linear reflection as shown in that tutorial you need to do a “Radial Gradient” as there is a light source coming from 3 directions and meeting in the middle so the reflection won’t just be in one direction.

And there you have it a completed logo and how to showcase it simply using Photoshop standard lighting, if there is anything you got confused about or need help with then please don’t hesitate to contact me with any queries either by leaving a comment here or emailing me at: stevie489@googlemail.com

Finished Result:



The PSD file is also available if anyone wants to know how to do something or what something looks like then email me at: stevie489@googlemail.com and I will happily mail it back.

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Depth of Field Effect

This tutorial shows you how to make a "Depth of Field Effect" in Photoshop this is where you pick something in an image that you want to "Stand Out" and then blur the background so the focal point of the image changes, really cool effect and can be used on any image.

Step 1: First of all get the picture that you want to edit and find the thing on the image that you want to make “Stand Out” when you have done this choose the Pen Tool and draw around the outline of the chosen object that you want to stand out as shown below:





Step 2: When this is done make sure the two ends of the path are connected and you should have the line of “crawling ants” around the selection, if like me there is something in front of your selection that you do not want to include in it then simply hold ALT and draw around the outline of that to subtract it from the selection as below:



Step 3: When this is done you have your selection ready, now press CTRL + Shift + I which inverts the selection to select everything outside of the original selection, now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the blur to around 3 pixels (depends on image so adjust it so that it looks ok with your image) and press ok.



Step 4: Now we are nearly done, to finish simply choose the blur tool (raindrop shaped) and pick a decent brush size and go around the very edge of your selection so that the edges don’t seem to sharp or pointy



And there you go the simple way to make something stand out more from their background below is the comparison from the original image to the finished image:

Finished Image:



Original:

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Making A Modern Looking Navigation Button

This tutorial will teach you some fundamental techniques when it comes to making cool looking buttons for a navigation bar easy to understand with plenty of detail and a nice looking outcome that can be used on any modern looking website.

Step 1: First of all open up a new document any size that you want (I used sizes 500 x 500)

Step 2: Now choose the gradient tool and set the gradient to radial gradient as shown below, and set the colours to: #000000, #49454d and drag from the middle outwards so that the lighter colour is in the middle.



Step 3: Now choose the rectangle tool and draw quite a large rectangle in the centre of the document, we now need to curve the edges, to do this simply follow this tutorial on “How To Round The Corners of A Shape Using Levels” after this you should be left with something like below:



Step 4: Now we need to draw a small rectangle and place it in the top right hand corner of the rectangle this will make that corner square again which gives the button a more modern cool look, when done press CTRL + J (Duplicate) with the small rectangle selected and move the duplicate layer to the bottom left hand corner to create the same effect so that you are left with something similar to below:



Step 5: Now right click on the separate layers that you have and choose “Rasterize Layer” this will convert the shapes to pixels, when done select all 3 of your rectangles and right click on one of them and choose “Merge Layers” this will merge them all into one layer:



Step 6: Next you need to double click on the rectangle layer which will bring up the “Blending Options” window, with this open you need to use the settings as shown below to get the same effect as me (you can also use your own colours):

Inner Shadow:



Gradient Overlay:



After adding these effects you should get a result similar to below:



Step 6: Now add the text that you want to use, I am using “Home” as it is for a Navigation Bar and place it in the centre of the button,

Step 7: To finish double click on the Text layer to open up the “Blending Options” and choose stroke and set it to the settings as below, alternatively to get the right colour you simply need to make the stroke a darker version of the colour used on the button:

Stroke:



Finished Button:



For added effect I have added a reflection on this one using THIS tutorial and created a couple more buttons in different colours so you can see what they could look like:



The PSD file is available to download if anybody is interested then please leave a comment asking for it or simply e-mail me at: stevie489@googlemail.com and I will happily mail it back to you

Also if you have any problems with this tutorial or need any help Photoshop then feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me.

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