There are some pretty cool things you can do with Photoshop that can changed your view of text for a while. One interesting one is having some normal text and adding a few shades to make it fun and more interesting. It is in two easy steps: 1. First, create an image about 300 x 100 pixels, and 72 pixels/inch. Select a foreground color of #CACACA, and fill the image, to make the background this color. When you've filled the background, then select your text tool, and add the text you want to add, make the color of the text close to #3F3F3F A darker grey. 2. OK, now we can add the shadow. It is as easy as adding a layer effect and can come in very useful for other things too. Go to Blending Options (Right-click on text layer).You will get a menu with structure, elements and quality. In the structure menu you would select 100% opacity, 0% noise, and the solid not gradient option. For the elements you would want the technique to be softer, the spread 2% and the size 8pixels. For quality you want 55% range and 0% jitter. You can always play around a little with these, if it does not suit. (The color used for the shadow is #8A8A8A) So once you have that, just click OK, and you should get your final result. It's as easy as that!
A fun way to add texture to your photo is by adding lines overlapping the picture. This will create a cool effect often seen in photo albums and slide shows. You can one of the most interesting sites out there. Grids can be used in headers, pictures anything you want really. The first thing you would do is: 1. Open Photoshop. Open an image to apply line effect. 2. Desaturate the image by Image > Adjustments > Desaturate 3. Create New file with 1 pixel width, 2 pixel height and transparent background. 4. Keep Black as a foreground color. Fill the top 1 X 1 pixel of transparent background using Pencil Tool. 5. Select All using CTRL + A 6. Create a pattern by Edit > Define Pattern. Name the pattern. 7. Close the Pattern file and go back to image file. 8. Edit > Fill (Choose "Pattern" from "Use" drop down menu and again in "Custom Pattern" you will find newly created pattern) 9. Select newly created pattern and fill the image.
Often websites will use effects that will make their site look really fun. There are fire blasts, smoke, lightening and other cool effects that can make your site look quite professional or fun, whatever way you chose to have it. To create a quick and easy fire blast you can use the polygon lasso tool to select a shape like an elongated triangle. Then fill with white. Then you would Apply Filter > Distort > Radial Blur Zoom 100%. Next you would want to set the eraser as above and brush lightly around the edges of the shape until you have a triangle that has some missing parts around it, you don't want to go to heavy with this tool, just enough to take off a bit of the outer edges. Finally Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur Radius 1.2. Now you have a full blown fire blast, you can really do whatever you want to your blast, make it red or yellow, but these are the initial steps to doing it.
Lots of people enjoy decorating their pages with fun little interfaces like chords and screens, they use things like gradiaents and shading that make it look difficult to do. In truth it is quite easy. To create a chord all you have to do is create a new document, make a 2 pixels line, black color. Then Filter > Disort > Shear. Play around with these settings until you see something you like. When you are done with that duplicate the layer and move it 1-2 pixels to the right to get this effect on the left. Now just give it a Drop Shadow Color = black: Layer effect = Multiply 66%: 120 Angle: Distance = 13: Spread = 0: Size = 10 And you done, it's that easy! You can do some pretty crazy things with chords, use them as string, extension chord in your graphics. Long gone are the days of hunting for good graphics online.
Changing your photos can be just as time consuming as creating them, why don't you have some fun doing it? For this step by step know how you will learn to shade your skies different colors. This is because in pictures the sky can look a little faded and fade the rest of the image. Sharpening your sky is pretty easy, start by opening the image that you want to edit. File > Open > Image name. Then go to Image > Adjust > Selective Color and apply the following settings: - Colors = Blues - Cyan = 0% - Magneta = 0% - Yellow = 0% - Black = 100% - Method = Relative (Change color settings to your liking if you want) Press OK. Now you should create a luminosity selection by hitting the Ctl + Alt + ~ . Then create a duplicate copy of the image (Ctl+J) or Layer > New > Layer Via Copy. Now select the new layer and set the new layer's Blending mode to color burn. In the new layer erase the parts that you don't want darkened. It is this easy and now your entire picture was touched up, instead of looking faded out you can sharpen you photo.
Want to do something cool? Turn mere chicken scratches into a commonly seen airbrushing techniques, here's how to do it: Set a pen tool as above and scribble across the canvas until you have a similar lock to the one below. Apply the Filter > Distort > Wave effect with the standard settings. Then Edit > Fade Wave. Repeat another two times but don't fade the wave on the last round it should look something like this. Apply the Filter > Blur > Radical Blur Zoom 50%. Click Edit > Fade Radical Blur > 75%.Set the eraser as above and brush lightly across the canvas until you have a similar look to the one below. Next Apply a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur set the radius so you get the required detail of airbrushing Apply > edit > Transform > Distort to create the required shape.
Now for some really fun stuff, ever wondered how to create those really awesome images that people use on their sites all time, well here is a step by step way to do it. Layer 1 Create a normal gradient fill. Layer 2 Duplicate the gradient layer and apply filter > Render > Difference Clouds 5 times. Set the layer to soft light. Layer 3 Duplicate the gradient [layer 1] and set to multiply. Layer 4 Now on to the render, Apply Filter > Distort > Radial Blur Zoom 100%. Apply Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast: Brightness -100, Contrast -100. Layer 5 Another render copy. Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur: Radius 10. Apply Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast: Brightness -100, Contrast -100. Move the layer slightly to offset the shadow. Layer 5 Another Render copy. This time simply as standard, Normal. Layer 6 Duplicate layer 5 and set to screen.Layer 7, 8, 9 Create 3 areas of exploding pixie dust. For light background areas set the layer to overlay. For dark backgrounds keep on normal. Layer 10, 11, 12 Create 3 areas of simple airbrushing. Duplicate each to improve contrast. Layer 13, 14, 15 Create 3 areas of more detailed airbrushing. Layer 16, 17 Duplicate the Render Twice, slightly offsetting each. This adds much larger scale to the structures. Use the eraser to rub out the middle unwanted area. Layer 18 Duplicate the original gradient layer and carefully erase the central part, so that the image comes through from underneath but fades towards the edges. Layer 19 Create a hue/saturation layer colorize with saturation set at 0. Set the opacity to 80%. Layer 20 Create a color balance layer. Highlights: Yellow -66 Midtones: Blue +20, Red +35 Shadows: Blue +15 Layer 21 Create a levels layer: Red input levels: 0, 1.3, 255 Layer 22 Create a Brightness/Contrast layer: Brightness +15, Contrast +25
