Graphic Design Tutorial Articles by Printplace.com: postcard printing campaigns

Showing posts with label postcard printing campaigns. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Create A Glossy Sphere Icon With Network Energy Bands Using Photoshop

In this special tutorial, we will teach you how you can create a glossy sphere icon with network energy bands using Adobe Photoshop. This design is reminiscent of computer icons that depict the Internet, or at least a dynamic hub network. If you need that modern representation for your poster printing and postcard printing designs, then the instructions below are what you need. We will cover here how you can create your own customized glossy sphere icon and insert in the eye catching network energy bands inside them. So just follow the steps below and learn.

First start creating a new document. If you are creating a real icon, using the dimensions 256x256 should be a good start. However, if you are creating a graphic for printed materials, then it is recommended that you go for higher dimensions of around 1000x1000. Set the resolution to a higher level as well (about 300ppi) to make sure the design is print worthy.

Once our work area is ready, use the Ellipse tool to create your spherical shape. It does not have to be a perfect circle. For our purposes we are going to elongate our ellipse a bit so that we can emphasize the shape with lighting and shadows later. However, you can hold down the shift key while inscribing your ellipse if you want to have a perfect circle. Of course, color your circle the way you want.

Next, double click on our new circle layer. This gives you access to the layer styles and blending options for this layer. Once you see the window, first click on the checkbox for Gradient Overlay. Click on the name of this option to see all of its settings. Use the settings below to get a convincing sphere look for our circle. a. Blend Mode: Normal b. Opacity: 100% c. Gradient Color: Light Blue -> Blue d. Style: Radial e. Align With Layer Checkbox: UNCHECK and then move your mouse over the circle, you will see the mouse cursor change to a move cursor, move the lighter spot of the gradient color near the bottom of the circle to simulate the sphere better. f. Angle: 90 degrees g. Scale: 100%

Also, click on the ÒInner ShadowÓ option in the layer styles. This adds a darker shadow for our sphere. Apply these settings for its options. a. Blend Mode: Multiply b. Opacity: 75% c. Angle: 90 degrees d. Distance: 12px e. Choke: 0 f. Size: 50px (varies depending on the size of your circle, just look at the preview and see what looks best.)

Great! Now we have a nice sphere, almost like a planet. We will now add some more subtle lighting options. To do this, duplicate our current circle by pressing CTRL+J. Clear the layer styles there my right clicking on the new layer and selecting ÒClear layer stylesÓ.

Next, double click on the new layer to get into its own blending style. First in the primary blending options, reduce the fill opacity to 0%

Next, click on the ÒInner GlowÓ options. Use these settings for the Inner glow. a. Blend Mode: Screen b. Opacity: 50% c. Choke: 0% d. Size: 15px

Now, we will add a shadow at the bottom of our sphere. Just create a new black circle at the bottom part of your new sphere. Move this layer behind our sphere layers. Turn this into a smart object by right clicking on it and selecting the option to Òconvert to smart object.

Next, go to Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur to apply some blurring of the shadow. Use a 73 pixel value on the window that opens.

Next, go to Filters -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur. Use a 20 pixel value on the Gaussian blur effect to simulate a good looking sphere shadow.

Then, we will add a final highlight. Using the ellipse tool again create a white oval at the center of your circle. Then access its blending options or layer options and then apply a gradient overlay that goes from white to transparent. Finally position your highlight layer accordingly at the top of our sphere.

Finally duplicate this white oval layer and then press CTRL+T to squeeze the duplicate layer quite a bit to make it look like the picture below. Once done, click on both layers and convert them to a smart object.

Finally, with the smart object selected, go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and use a 20pixel value for the shape.

Now, to add the network energy lines simply create an ellipse on the center of our sphere. Go to its blending options and first remove its fill by adjusting it to 0%.

Now, tick on the checkbox for stroke. Add a 4 pixel white stroke to our ellipse.

Then, click on outer glow, and apply a 10 value to both spread and size.

Then tick off the inner glow option and use a 10 size value as well there.

Now, convert our ellipse to a smart object by right clicking on it and selecting convert to smart object. Duplicate this layer as a backup. Afterwards use the eraser tool with a 0% hardness to erase the left side of the ellipse. If they ask to rasterize the shape, say ok.

Then, just duplicate the curve you made and rotate it to apply it to different places in the sphere.

Finally, we make the nodes glow. To do this, simple create a small circle for each of the nodes using the ellipse tool. For each circle convert it to a smart object and then a Gaussian blur (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur). Just adjust the pixel blur radius depending on how intense you want those nodes to be.

Great! Now you have a nice glossy sphere with network energy nodes. This is perfect if you want to create a specialized globe graphic or network representation.

Visit this site, Printplace.com, to read more about Graphic Design Tutorials.

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

How To Create A Glossy Red Apple With A Bite Using Photoshop

Need a stylish Apple icon with web 2.0 elements for your poster or booklet cover design? Well, this tutorial will show you the key steps on how exactly to do it using Adobe Photoshop. We will create something almost akin to the Apple company logo, but of course fully customizable for your own poster printing and postcard printing projects. Just make sure you read carefully so that you do not miss a step. Let us start.

1. First setup the right background for our apple. Light and neutral colours would be a good thing for our apple to stand out. So for this example, we have set a nice light green and white gradient background. Simply use the gradient tool and adjust the colours to achieve this.

2. Now, first we draw an apple. To do this, simply use the Ellipse tool to draw a circle first. For our purposes, we have created a red circle. Now, add two anchor points on the left and right side of the top anchor point of the circle. You can do this by using the ÒAdd Anchor Point ToolÓ on top of the text tool. Do the same anchor points for the bottom.

3. Next move your top and bottom anchor points to create our apple shape.

4. Next, use the ellipse tool to cut out a bite in our apple shape. To do this, you just need to hold the ALT key first whilst dragging the ellipse tool on top of our apple shape. You should see then a minus cursor sign appear and of course the shape below being cut according to what you inscribe.

5. Great! With our shape all setup. We now go to the styling of the apple shape itself. To access the layer styles and blending options simply double click on our apple shape. In the window that opens, first click on the blending options and set your fill to 0%.

6. Next, click on the option for inner shadow. Then, apply these settings.

a. Blend Mode: Multiply, Color Dark Red

b. Opacity: 50%

c. Angle: 118 degrees

d. Distance: 5px

e. Choke: 0

f. Size 18px

7. Now, click on the inner glow option. Use the values here for the settings:

a. Blend Mode: Normal

b. Opacity: 52%

c. Colour: Light Red

d. Elements Size: 40px

e. Quality Range: 50%

f. Rest default

8. Finally add a gradient overlay by clicking on its checkbox. Use a red and dark red gradient overlay by editing the gradient colours. Just click on the gradient box and edit as needed. Use the default values for the rest of the gradient options. If you think though your colours are reversed, simply click on the reverse tick box.

9. Finally, add a 1 pixel red stroke by clicking on the stroke layer style and adding the appropriate values.

10. Great, now we have an apple shape with some great shadow and gloss effects.

11. Now, using the pen tool, create the leaf. It should have four anchor points.

12. Then, use all the same blending options that we used for the apple shape. (Right click on the original layer and choose copy layer style. Then paste it to the leaf layer.)This time tough change all the red values to green. So all dark red settings will become dark green settings, and the same for the light reds and plain red valued. Convert them all to their green counterparts.

13. Also you may add a part of the stalk. Again use the pen tool to use this. Paste the apply layer style to this too, and of course change the colour base values from red to brown.

14. Great! Now you have a nice glossy apple with bite mark. Congratulations!

Check out Printplace.com's tips and tricks section for more graphic design tutorials...

Friday, March 02, 2012

3D Glossy Stars In Illustrator

In this tutorial we create three dimensional glossy stars using Adobe Illustrator. This is perfect for psychedelic, fun poster printing, themed postcard printing campaigns or banners needing that magical effect. Let us start by using the most obvious tool to create the base of our graphic.

Of course, make sure that you open a new document in Adobe Illustrator. Set to creating a web document or a print document, depending on the purpose and destination of your 3D glossy stars.

Now, we shall use the “star tool” to create our star. Simple Look for it in the tools window. You may want to click and hold the left mouse button to see the option for the start tool under shape tools.

Next, click and drag the star tool over the canvass. If you want to make sure that the shape snaps to the horizontal plane and never gets rendered at an angle, hold down the SHIFT key as drag the mouse creating the star shape.

Also, keep in mind that if you want longer and thinner rays or arms around your star, then you can hold the CTRL key as you expand the size of your start graphic. For our purposes, we did not alter the default size of the rays as the default is good for our design purposes.

Once you are done, Make sure you create another duplicate copy of your original start. We will use this for layer. Simply press CTRL+C and CTRL+V while your star shaped is selected and save this for layer by just moving the duplicate at the side.

Now, we will add some extra accents to our star of course. First, select the line segment tool in our tools window.

Next, connect each point of the star to the other point directly opposite to it like so.

Once you are done, it should look a little like this:

Now select all the lines and the start shape by dragging the selection tool across your assembled star figure.

Next, go to the pathfinder window (Shortcut SHIFT+CTRL+F9) and click on the option “divide”.

This enables you to select the individual sections of our star precisely.

Start adding colour gradients to each individual part. Make sure that you add colour gradient combinations in alternate themes to get a more creative effect in your star.

If you used strokes in shaping your star from the beginning, make sure you remove it now so that the star looks more of a whole figure. Just go to the stroke drop down menu in the control window to remove the stroke by selecting NONE as the value.

Great! Now we have a nice looking glossy type star. Let us add an accent to it. First place the duplicate of the star we made over the current design.

Next, add a colour gradient to the star just like how you did it with the original start. Then Resize it a bit so that it is smaller than the original one.