Friday, January 26, 2007

Photoshop tutorial creating a stylish 3d box DVD cover

1. Start by making a layer and draw in a front and a side square in a different color then the background.


2. Now draw in some graphic, and write some text as I did the pictures below. Tip: the easy way to draw inside the squares without drawing outside the borders is to hold down ctrl key and click the layer with the shapes, the draw inside the selection. I would recomment you draw in another layer so you keep control over your different shapes.

3. As you can see from the image above, I took advantage of the custom shapes in photoshop, they can give a very professional look without much work.



4. Now hold down ctrl while clicking at the layer containing the cover shape, so you get the selection around all the graphics. Then go to the rolldown menu Edit -> stroke and apply a stroke around the whole thing.

5. Your project should now look something like mine below. The only thing we need now is to giv it some 3d perspectiv shape.



6. start by creating a folder in your layers panel, drag all your layers except the backgound, make a copy of that folder for backup, then hide it. Then right click on the folder and choose group into smart object, then right click again and choose rasterize layer.

7. Now select the side view part of the dvd cover and hold down ctrl while pressing X, and then press V (still holding down ctrl) now you have split the cover into two layers one part with the front and one with the side view, name the layers front and side. also move them into place as shown in the image.

8. Select the front layer and go to the scroll menu edit -> transform -> perspectiv, then move the corners as shown in the image below.



9. While still having the front layer selected hold down ctrl and press T for transform and drag in the left middle square so the front is getting smaller to the result below.



10. Do some perspectiv work to the side layer also, so it looks something like the one below.


11. Now we can do some reflection to the cover, just to give it a better look. make a copy of the two layers and place it below the front and side layer. call them reflection-front and reflection-side.



12. Select the reflection layer and move it down so its below the other element. go to edit menu -> transform -> flip vertical.

13. Now select each layer and hold down ctrl and press T, move the corners up so they touch the covers corners as shown in the image below.



14. Now merge the reflection layers to one layer by making sure that one is just above the other and right click on the top one, choose merge down.

15. Make a selection of the reflection object, by holding down ctrl while clicking on the reflection layer.


16. Choose gradian tool, and make it white to invisible as shown below.



17. Then drag from top to bottom of the image (this may take some trys to get right).
then your down :-) easy when you know the steps.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Photoshop tutorial how to make a cool water reflection



1. We start by cutting out the object we want to work with so it has a white background in a layer beneath it.



2. Then make a copy of the object you are working on, and put it below the other on, and name it reflection, do this just by clicking on the layers text.


3. Now with the reflection layer selected hold down ctrl key while pressing T (this is shortcut for free transform). Use the upper middle dragable box to make the layer as a reflected image, by dragging it all the way down.tip: if you want it a bit more realistic holddown ctrl key while dragging the corners (not drag to much) to make the reflection a bit larger the closer it gets to you.



4. While still having the reflection layer selected go giv it a motion blur from the filters scrolldown, not to much, then giv it a ripple from the filters menu, at last put down the reflection layers opacity.


5. Now to the hard part (or just a bit more demanding). go to filters -> wave, well here are alot of parameters to play with, but try doing them like in the image below.



6. Thats it, just one more tip, I often see when I cut out objects from a background that the object is very cornered or pixelized, try using the filters -> diffuse glow. it gives some kind of depth of field.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Photoshop tutorial making a cool glowing logo

Photoshop tutorial making a cool glowing logo

1.start by creating a new project window. I always make it a bit larger then I need.now type in your prefered text.


2. Use your selection tool and make a elliptical selection around your text, and create a new layer from your layers panel. Then hold down your shift key while pressing backspace, fill the selected area with a default color.



3. Now go to your layers style and add style like in the next couple of images.







4. When thats done, also add an outer glow with its default settings, pree ok, and move your text layer above your elliptical layer.

5. Make your text layer about 60% in Opacity.

6. We will now add a glass kind of effect to this logo. now make a selection so it covers half of your object, hold down shift and press backspace, fill with the color white.´




7. Hold down ctrl (control key) and press the layer with your elliptical object from before, and then hold down ctrl and shift at the same time while pressing i, this will invert your selection. now it delete.


8. Now set the opacity of your glass layer to about 60%


9. Go to the layers style for your glow layer and add values as in this image:



10. Here you see my image, I have been playing around with text and fonts and bend my text to fit the object.
And your done.