Photoshop Blending Options : Spruce up your graphics

Spruce up your graphics
Setting Document Dimensions
Preparing a new layer for blending use
Layer options
The Blending Options Menu
More Blending Options

Spruce up your graphics

Ok, I'll be real honest. This is really easy. Basically what we're going to do in this tutorial is learn how to take a plain graphic and tweak it to something like this:

Before

After

This tutorial is geared toward the beginner and intermediate users of basic photoshop functions. But if you've been doing graphic design for quite some time, you still might learn a few tricks along the way.

Dustin Diaz
www.polvero.comDustin is an active member of the Christian-web-masters.com Forums. He enjoys building web sites, and doing graphic design work. Please check out his Sacramento InterVarsity website where you can read Christian articles for College students

Photoshop Blending Options : Layer options

Spruce up your graphics
Setting Document Dimensions
Preparing a new layer for blending use
Layer options
The Blending Options Menu
More Blending Options

Layer options

Ok, we have now successfully created a 300x300 white box...and it's only taken us 3 pages to get there! But please, don't be scared away, for some people, what they have learned thus far could be a big revelation. Just so you don't feel like you've been cheated, let's get some actual text up on this thing.

Go ahead and choose your Text Tool or simply just press the letter T (Windows & Macintosh). Now click anywhere on layer 1 and make up some fake text. I'll let your imaginative souls write whatever you want. I'll even let you choose your own Font! For this example i'll go ahead and use the slogan Fred's Wicked Diner.

Great. Now that's squared away... Let's start to edit our Layer 1 blending options. To

Get started go ahead and "right-click" somewhere on the layer 1 properties box...then choose "Blending Options..."

Great! You have now entered the world of your Blending Options.

Dustin Diaz
www.polvero.comDustin is an active member of the Christian-web-masters.com Forums. He enjoys building web sites, and doing graphic design work. Please check out his Sacramento InterVarsity website where you can read Christian articles for College students

Photoshop Blending Options : Preparing a new layer for blending use

Spruce up your graphics
Setting Document Dimensions
Preparing a new layer for blending use
Layer options
The Blending Options Menu
More Blending Options

Preparing a new layer for blending use

This is an important step before we actually start to mess with the advanced functions of the blending options menu.

Another setting to check before we get started is to see whether or not you're working in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) mode. Simply go to your Image menu and choose mode > RGB color.

So as we can see, right now, with nothing being changed, we have one layer (appropriately named "background" -- this is the default setting). To be safe, we'll leave that layer alone and create a new transparent layer. So, to do this: go to the layer menu and choose new > layer. Or simply hit ctrl + shift + N (windows) or apple + shift + N (Macintosh). We now have our first non-background layer appropriately named layer 1... Isn't this exciting!

Alright, let's get down to some actual editing of this thing. Before we start messing with the blending options let's simply make this a plain white layer. Now although it may appear white...it's not. It's transparent, and we're seeing the background layer. So to do this: choose your paint bucket tool by selecting it or just hit the letter G:

Next we'll want to make sure our Foreground color is set to white as well. Simply click on your foreground color box, and type in the hex code number FFFFFF.

Finally, go ahead and spill that paint all over your Transparent layer (layer 1).

Dustin Diaz
www.polvero.comDustin is an active member of the Christian-web-masters.com Forums. He enjoys building web sites, and doing graphic design work. Please check out his Sacramento InterVarsity website where you can read Christian articles for College students

Photoshop Blending Options : Setting Document Dimensions

Spruce up your graphics
Setting Document Dimensions
Preparing a new layer for blending use
Layer options
The Blending Options Menu
More Blending Options

Setting Document Dimensions

To start off, let's open up your Photoshop program (versions 6.0 or 7.0) and fire up a new document. Simply go to File > New or just hit ctrl + N (windows) or Apple + N (Macintosh).

Let's put in the following dimensions for our document:

Height: 300 (pixels)
Width: 300 (pixels)
Resolution: 72 DPI

So far everything is going just great. If something has gone terribly wrong at this point, maybe Graphic Design wasn't meant for you. Otherwise, let's move on.

Dustin Diaz
www.polvero.comDustin is an active member of the Christian-web-masters.com Forums. He enjoys building web sites, and doing graphic design work. Please check out his Sacramento InterVarsity website where you can read Christian articles for College students

Photoshop Blending Options : The Blending Options Menu

Spruce up your graphics
Setting Document Dimensions
Preparing a new layer for blending use
Layer options
The Blending Options Menu
More Blending Options

The Blending Options Menu

Now that we've finally made it this far, you can't turn back! After all, that's why you started this whole thing anyway wasn't it?

Just to be sure you're not completely lost; you should see a menu that looks something similar (or perhaps exactly like) the menu below:

You now have 10 distinct options to play with and add to your layer (Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer glow, Inner glow, Bevel and Emboss, Satin, Color overlay, Gradient overlay, Pattern Overlay, and Stroke). Go ahead and click on a few. See what happens. I'll let you play for a few minutes.

All right, now that you've had your play time. You may (or may not) have noticed that there are several different ways to add layer styles. For instance, let's say we want to play with the Satin. But instead of clicking on the actual checkbox, go ahead and click somewhere off to the right of it like so:

As you have noticed, your options changed onto the "Satin Menu." Congratulations. You now have all it really takes to know how to successfully navigate your Blending options!

Dustin Diaz
www.polvero.comDustin is an active member of the Christian-web-masters.com Forums. He enjoys building web sites, and doing graphic design work. Please check out his Sacramento InterVarsity website where you can read Christian articles for College students