Hi Gang! It’s been a while and I feel totally bad about not writing for so long (5 days!). And many things have happened in the meantime.
We had technical issues with our WordPress blog, then we upgraded it to the latest 2.5 version, then we had some more technical issues – BUT it is all resolved now!!!! (Thank you Nickola from Siteground! You’ve been a great help and support in a tough times!)
So, we’re up and running again and it is my great pleasure to introduce our first guest writer:
Lauren from Creative Curio
Lauren has been in the graphic design industry since 2003 and currently runs Creative Curio, a graphic design focused blog. Scrapbooking has been her hobby since around the same time, and she loves this no-pressure creative outlet. Therefore, she didn’t think twice when we asked her if she would like to write about scrapbooking.
So, if you’d like to find out how was the scrapbook image above done check out Scrapboking tutorial: Children in Spring –> by Lauren from Creative Curio.
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OK. So for those of you who want to do everything by yourself, here is the tutorial, or should I say – a recipe!
So what we need is:
1. A brand new image sized 400 x 425 pixels (of course, you can make it any size you want)
2. Rockwell font (This one has to be bought, but I recommend dafont.com as a great resource for free fonts so if you don’t have it and don’t want to buy, you can take the one you like from there.)
3. Butterflies Swirls. Those can be bought too, set of 20 for $9,99 or downloaded for free, set of 5.
Now, many of you have asked how to get free version of butterflies. Here is how:
1. Subscribe to my super-dooper newsletter (where I only write about cool stuff!) Subscribe by clicking here –>!
2. You will receive the link to the freebies (43 free sets of Photoshop brushes, Butterfiles are among them)
3. Click on the link (or image with the Butterflies brushes) and – voila, just download them.
(OK, I’d prefer if you buy it. If you can’t afford, drop me a mail.)
So, we’re ready to start.
It all starts with a gradient from blue to black as shown here:
Then well add a elegant glowing line with few sparkles. Line was done with a pen tool. Then, when in a new layer, select Brush tool and select simple good old fashioned Photoshop default brush like this:
Now select Pen tool, position it above the path, right-click the mouse select stroke subpath, make sure Brush is selected as well as Simulate pressure, you can now hide the path with Ctrl+H and – Voila! Nice! In’nit?
Add a few dots using really small brush add some outer glow, here are the settings:
And this is the result:
Now, let’s add text and butterflies and after a bit of playing with the same effects that we used for sparkles and the stroke we get:
And finally, I wanted to add some more color to the graphics:
As you can see this was done by adding two more layers, each of them partially filled with Gradient tool and blending set to color. These layers are positioned above the background and the stroke and below the butterflies and text.
And voila! Here it is! Our new creation:
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This tutorial will show you how to create, fast and simple, but effective, winter scene in Photoshop. Use it for your own postcard, greeting card or scrapbook page.
1. Create a new document 6”x4” and color the background using Linear Gradient Tool with light blue (cyan) to white like this:
2. To make hills landscape use the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make some ellipses on a new layer holding down the “Shift” button like this:
3. Fill the hills shape with the same linear gradient fill you used for the background. Copy the “hills” layer and flip the layer horizontally. Now, lower the upper “hills” layer a bit. Reduce the opacity of the hills in the background (lower „hills“ layer) to 50%
4. It should look like this:
5. Add some white thick brush strokes in the blue area and
6. use the Blur Tool (50) to create the clouds effect.
7. It should look like this:
8. Now we need some trees? Yes. Use Polygonal Lasso Tool and create triangle as shown on the following screen shot.
9. Then, press Shift key and while holding it down make another two triangles and the trunk as presented on the following screen shots.
10. Now it’s time to fill the trees with some color. For that purpose we will use the gradient that we used earlier in this tutorial. Convert the tree to a Smart Object – later you can duplicate it and change it’s size without loosing it’s quality.
11. When done with trees, merge all layers that contain trees and copy it.
12. Duplicate the trees layer. Drag one of them between two layers with hills. Flip that layer horizontally (that hill is already flipped so the tress will match).
13. Now we need some snowflakes. A perfect opportunity to use my “Snowy skies” Photoshop brush. Let’s make it white.
14. set the snowflakes layer opacity to 50%.
15. Simple winter scene in Photoshop is done!
******
Few Simple Samples
© Photographer: bsilvia | Agency: Dreamstime.com
© Photographer: bsilvia | Agency: Dreamstime.com
© Photographer: bsilvia | Agency: Dreamstime.com
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Create a new file 5″ x 7” at 300pix/inch in RGB mode. Color the background layer with a blue linear gradient.
Draw some basic tree shape or use my “tree.eps“. Place the “tree.eps” as “smart object”.
Copy it (CTRL+J on PC or Cmd+J on Mac) as much as you want – resize it and plant it all over your Christmas card.
You can resize it freely because it’s vector format and it will not loose a bit on quality.
Color them in different tones of white and blue to create an illusion of depth, 3rd dimension.
Create a new layer (CTRL+Shift+N on PC or Cmd+Shift+N on Mac), use snowflake brush from brush set “Grunge Snowflakes Brush” – spread snowflakes in different sizes all over the background.
Color the layer with the snowflakes with “Gradient Overlay” from white to approx 45% of cyan.
Now you can write “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year” and Christmas card is finished!
… or if you don’t feel like going through all this but would like to use this file for your needs – download the original file for less than $1 :)
Cheers!
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During the last few days I received a number of questions on installation and usage of the Photoshop brushes.
So, here is a short tutorial on installation and usage :)
Please note:
This tutorial is made on a PC. Since all Photoshop Brushes are Mac compatible, the procedure to install them onto Mac is similar.
After you download brushes from this blog (or FULL versions from my little shop), a file with .abr extension (if they’re in .zip file you’ll need to uncompress them first) must be placed in the following folder:
Program files > Adobe > Photoshop *** > Presets > Brushes
NOTE: These brushes are compatible with Photoshop Elements and with Paint Shop Pro. (Here is the tutorial on how to use them in Paint Shop Pro).
Installing new Photoshop brushes is quite simple.
- Download the zip file to any folder on your local disk
- Unzip the .abr file and copy it to Program files > Adobe > Photoshop > Presets > Brushes
After they’re downloaded, select brush tool from the main toolbar and open Brushes Window (or just press F5 to get the brushes window)
Click the arrow in the upper right corner to navigate through the Brushes Window (small arrow in the upper right corner)
Now select “Load Brushes …” in order to activate the downloaded ones.
Select the brush and click on “Load”.
New Brushes will show up in „Brushes Window“
Select the Brush colour and play with the parameters. Now it’s all up to you and your imagination.
*******
Voila!
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December, 12th update: How to create big pop art circle in Photoshop, VIDEO tutorial
Little update: please make sure to set up the image in Grayscale mode before applying the filter.
And, please, please: it has to be done on a background layer! Don’t create a new layer.
Create a new document in Photoshop. Make sure it is in equally proportional dimensions (like 600×600 pixels or similar). Fill it in using „Radial gradient“ from black (inside) to transparent (outside).
Use „Custom fill“ option, and make gradient as in the image below (or similar).
Now use Filter –> Pixelate –> Color Halftone, and play with the options (for example radius size depends on the size of your document).
Voila!
Go even furter – vectorize this image, play with it and enjoy the results.
See you next Thursday, same place :)
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