Monday, March 10, 2014

Simple Silver Leaf and Typography Photoshop Tutorial



This tutorial is inspired by this Gold Leaf Photoshop Elements tutorial on Teal & Lime. However, my tutorial uses silver leaf, Photoshop CS6 software (not Elements), one file throughout (not two), and uses the Rasterize feature (not the Define Brush feature plus the Eraser tool).

Steps:

Create a document that is 11 inches wide, 8.5 inches tall, and 300 PPI (pixels per inch). Make the Mode CMYK by going to Image->Mode->CMYK Color.

Do a Google search for the background you want (e.g. search for "silver leaf background") and select a high-res image. Copy it (CTRL+C on a PC), and paste it into your document (CTRL+V on a PC).

(1)

Create a new layer on top of that (see the New Layer icon on the bottom right and click it). Then, make the new layer white, or whatever you want your other color to be (select the area with the Magic Wand tool, then use the Fill tool and choose white on the upper swatch box). I’ve named my layers but this is an unnecessary step.

(2)

Now for the letters! Create new layer on top of your white layer and type "I heart you." For the letters, choose Rockwell Extra Bold font, or another thick font. For the heart, choose Webdings and type a capital ‘Y’. I used large font (e.g. 90-pt). To help center my text, I used View->New Guide to create a vertical guide at 5.5 inches (half the width) and a horizontal guide at 4.25 inches (half the height), but the guides are optional.

(3)

Afterwards, use the rectangular marque tool and draw a rectangle around your letters.

(4)

Go to Layer->Rasterize Type. Now you can select the letters like they were shapes. Deselect the rectangle (Select->Deselect), then use the Magic Wand to select the ‘I’.

(5)

Go to Select and choose Similar to select the rest of the letters which are similar in color to the 'I'. Now, move to your white layer and turn off visibility on your upper-most layer (highlight your white layer by clicking on it, then click the eye to the left of your upper-most layer to hide it).

(6)

Now you are ready for the fun part. Hit Delete to permanently delete the letters from your white layer, thus letting the silver layer below show through!

Deselect your letters (Select->Deselect, or CTRL+D on a PC) and you have your final image!

(7)

Now, decide how big you want to print this image. For my 4x6 inch frame, I went to Image->Canvas Size and chose 4 inches tall by 6 inches wide.

(8)

And it’s that simple!


(9)

Of course, if you want to do this the easy way and just download my final image, here is a 4.5 x 6.5 inch final image. You can print it out at full size (click it to enlarge it to full size), and trim it with scissors down to a 4x6 inch size.


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