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In this tutorial I will show you really easy techniques to create aurora borealis (cool lighting effects) in a night sky or for a space project you may want to do. I will also show you an easy way to add stars to an image.
For this newest update I am going to show you a cool and simple way to create some neat web 2.0 style icons that I am going to use as a menu for a site, but you could use this technique for anything. This is a very easy way to use blending options to achieve a nice effect!
First I started off with a 400X150px canvas and made a new layer. In your new layer use your elliptical marquee tool to draw as perfect of a circle as you can like this:
Next right click or double click on your new layer and use these blending options:
Stroke
Gradient Overlay
I also moved around the colors in my gradient overlay like this:
Inner Glow
Outer Glow
You should end up with something like this:
See I told you this was easy and achieves a cool effect, at least I do anyway. Let me know what you think. Now for a few more touches to make these even better, first I am going to add the web 2.0 feel to it. Start a new layer and get your ellipse tool and change your fill color to white. Make a circle similar to this on the button:
Next you need to grab a soft eraser brush about 45px:
Now position your eraser in the middle over the bottom half of the circle:
While holding down shift click and move the mouse down and up over and over until you get something like this:
Just try it a few times until you get something you like. I think this is looking pretty cool so far what about you? Now I want to add a small shadow underneath to make this really stand out. Yet again we are going to use the ellipse tool, but we want the color to be black. Make a new layer again and make a circle underneath the button like this:
Ok, now that you have that lets add some gaussian blur to it. So go to Filter>>Blur>>Gaussian Blur:
Add a 7.5px radius in the Gaussian blur settings:
Hit Ok and you should see something like this:
I think that would really stand out on a website. Last but not least we are going to add some text to it and see what it would look like as a menu. Use white arial text (or whatever font you want) around 20px and just put text on your button, I am going to put the word “Home”.
Now for the text reflection. Duplicate the text, rotate it 180 degrees and flip it horizontally. In my version of photoshop I just go to Edit>>Transform and both of those settings are in the same window. Position your text below the main text like this:
Its time to use the eraser brush again and just keep the same size you had before because it will work nicely. Pick your eraser, click on the text and a little window will popup saying you must rasterize the layer before you can do this, so of course say OK. There are other ways to make a reflection but I think this is the easiest, atleast to me. So position your eraser toward the bottom of the rasterized text, while holding down shift move your mouse from left to right erasing a little of it.
My result:
That is pretty much it, now you can duplicate that layer and make other buttons as part of the menu. Also it is very easy to change the color of these by changing the gradient overlay like this:
I hope this tutorial helped you learn some new techniques and you enjoyed. Please let me know if there is anything I can clarify or help you with. Thanks for reading!
In today’s tutorial, we will learn how to place your own advertisement on a taxi cab. To start, you’ll need a good taxi image. Here’s the one I am using.
The first step, although unnecessary, certainly spices up the image a bit and gives it a nice glow.
Duplicate your taxi layer by right-clicking and selecting Duplicate Layer. Double click the layer to bring up the Layer Style panel. Under Blending Options, please change the Blend Mode from
Now your image has a nice glow to it doesn’t it?
Now to add your photo or advertisement to the taxi. In this scenario, I’ll be using a stylized version of a personal photograph.
Place the image roughly over the taxi ad revolver. Grab your Polygonal Lasso Tool “L†and carefully select a rectangle the same size as the taxi revolver.
Press “Ctrl-shift-I†to select the inverse selection and press delete. Now your image fits snuggly into the ad revolver.
Just about finished with this tutorial, hang in there! Double click the picture/ad layer to bring up the Layer Style panel and using the same method as before change the Blend Mode from
And there you have it, a personalized advertisement on a big city taxi cab!
In this tutorial we will apply some nifty web 2.0 styling to create an effective business card. If you haven’t done so yet, consider brushing up on what exactly web 2.0 is by visiting out Web 2.0 Checklist.
This tutorial uses a technique described elsewhere at Photoshop Town, but you should be able to figure it out without going through that tutorial.
Let’s start by opening a new document. Standard business card size calls for dimensions of 3.5in x 2in and a Resolution of 300 pixels/inch.
Step One is the create the background for your web 2.0 business card. Set your foreground color to #e2e2e3. Now select your background layer and hit “M†to bring up your marquee tool. Make a selection approximately 4/5ths the height of your document and 100% of the width.
Select the gradient tool with “shift-g†and change your gradient to go from #e2e2e3 to white.
Now give your marquee box the gradient to create a horizon of sorts.
Now for the easy part, it’ll make you feel like you’ve really accomplished something! Go ahead a write your address and give it an alignment right as opposed to the standard left with the color #3c3c3c. Font selection here is only slightly important, while readability is key. I would use something along the lines of Lucida Sans Unicode. Place your address near the bottom right, but leave some room around the edges. When designing for print, and specifically offset printing you need to accommodate for the edges.
If you want, throw your tag line down at the bottom. In keeping with the web 2.0 theme, use VAGRounded BT as your font. Others will work well including Arial Rounded.
Hang in there, we are over halfway done! Time to throw together a logo and then its off to the printers.
Type your company name with the web 2.0 font of your choice, again im using VAGRounded BT
Duplicate the layer by right-clicking and selcting Duplicate Layer. Rasterize the layer by right-clicking and selecting Rasterize Type. Using your oval marquee tool select roughly the bottom half and press delete. Still following? Now double click the layer to bring up the Layer Style panel and select Gradient Overlay. Create a new gradient to match your text color, I am using #88b9eb.
Just about done, lets put a trendy mirrored image in there. Go back to your logo name layer and again right click and select duplicate layer. Press “ctrl-t†to Transform your layer. Right-click the layer and select Flip Vertical. Now move the layer below your logo name.
Double-click the layer to bring up the Layer Style panel and apply another gradient overlay using the same settings as before, #88b9eb to #FFFFFF but this time reverse the gradient.
Drop the layer opacity down to about 25%.
[opacity]
Go back to your original logo name layer and double click to bring up the Layer Style panel. Click on drop shadow and apply the following effect.
And there you have it, an effective web 2.0 styled business card!
