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About this lesson
Great for cards, logos, seasonal messages and personal projects. Use in conjunction with our ‘Create Your Own Custom Shape’ lesson.
Exercise files
There are no related exercise files for this lesson, or we cannot provide them due to copyright issues.
Quick reference
Topic
Create a shape from snow using shape paths and custom brushes.
When to use
Great for cards, logos, seasonal messages and personal projects. Use in conjunction with our ‘Create Your Own Custom Shape’ lesson.
Instructions
Create initial shape:
- Tools bar: custom shape tool. Choose heart from Dropdown Shape menu. Drag out shape on new layer of document.
- Use Command- or Control-T to change the shape angle.
Create a custom brush
- Tools bar: custom brushes No 59 px (spatter brush).
- Activate brush panel from Window Dropdown menu
- Brush tip shape:
- Size: 59px, Spacing: 1%,
- Shape Dynamics: Size Jitter: 100%, Angle Jitter: 100%, Roundness Jitter: 100%, Minimum: 0%, Control: off.
- Scattering: Both Axis ON, Scatter: 55%, Count: 1
- Texture: Pattern Picker Clouds, Scale: 130%, Depth: 70%, Mode: Subtract.
- Save to new brush pre-set menu
Applying the custom brush to the shape:
- Add a Layer Mask to the shape
- Make sure that the path is active (broken frame around mask)
- To apply the custom brush to the shape path: with the Brush Tool active press Return (Enter).
- Repeat a few times, while changing the brush size for more variety
- Spot with brush to finish off any holes.
Add Layer Styles to give the edge of the snow some texture:
- To the shape, add a Gradient Overlay:
- Angle: 90, Color Left: 137FE4, Color Right: 082463
- Bevil and Emboss:
- Style: Emboss, Direction: Down, Size: 40, Use Global Light: Off, Altitude: 60, Angle: 120, Opacity: 0%, Shadow: 100%, Color: 1B6160
- Section: Drop Shadow:
- Blend Mode: Overlay, Color: white, Opacity: 100%, Distance: 10, Size: 5,
Tip
Bring in additional textures and images into the shape for extra content. For example, a sale poster can be updated every week with more content using the same design.
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- 00:04 So, today we're going to take a boring image of snow
- 00:07 and give it a little love. The first thing we need to do is create our shape.
- 00:12 You're free to use any shape that you wish, but for the sake of Valentines Day,
- 00:15 we're going to use a heart.
- 00:16 Lucky for us, Adobe has included a preset heart in Photoshop.
- 00:20 In your Tools bar, grab your custom shape tool and then at the top under
- 00:24 the Options bar,
- 00:25 look for the heart shape using the shape finder. If you don't see the heart as one
- 00:28 of the options,
- 00:29 you may need to load in some additional shapes. You should now have
- 00:33 two heart shapes at your disposal. When you decide which one to use,
- 00:36 drag out your shape on your document. Don't worry too much about the colors, as we are
- 00:40 going to be adding a gradient shortly.
- 00:42 Now, if you choose, you can also enter free transform by using your
- 00:45 Command or Control T shortcut,
- 00:47 and then rotate to shape a little bit to stray away from a dead-on angle.
- 00:50 At this point, we need to add snow around the edges of the heart.
- 00:54 To do this, we're going to create a custom brush. Using a custom brush has
- 00:58 many advantages.
- 00:59 One: it’s completely customizable. And two: it’s going to save us from tedious masking.
- 01:03 To save us a little bit to work, we're going to start with a Photoshop
- 01:07 preset brush.
- 01:07 After you've selected your brush tool, under the brush picker,
- 01:11 select a brush with stippled edges. Photoshop has many of these, but if
- 01:15 you're following along,
- 01:16 I'm starting off with the 59 pixel spatter brush.
- 01:19 Once your brush is selected, it's time to customize. As with any brush
- 01:23 customization, we need to reveal the brush panel.
- 01:25 This can be activated under the Window menu at the top of your
- 01:29 workspace.
- 01:30 Now that the brush panel’s open, let's go to some settings, starting with the ‘brush
- 01:33 tip shape’ section.
- 01:35 For now, we're going to keep the size at 59 pixels, and then make sure that spacing
- 01:39 down at the bottom is set to 1%.
- 01:40 Hopping into ‘shape dynamics’, we’re going to increase in size
- 01:44 the angle and the roundness jitter, all to 100%.
- 01:48 This will give us nice variation in the snow surrounding the heart.
- 01:51 Also, make sure that the minimum values are set to 0%,
- 01:55 and the control options are off. Next, onto ‘scattering’: turn on both axis,
- 02:01 set the scatter at 55% and the count
- 02:04 at one. This will allow the snow to stray away from the single path that
- 02:08 we're going to use.
- 02:09 And finally, let's add a texture. Under the pattern picker, select the clouds
- 02:14 pattern.
- 02:14 If you don't see that pattern available, just like with are shapes, you might have
- 02:17 to load in some additional patterns.
- 02:19 The clouds pattern is available under the pattern set.
- 02:23 Once the clouds pattern is selected, set the scale at 130%,
- 02:27 the depth at 70%, and then change the mode to subtract.
- 02:30 At this point, your brush is complete.
- 02:34 If you want to save your brush for future use, select a new brush preset
- 02:37 option from the drop-down menu at the top right corner of the brush panel.
- 02:41 Now, we can start applying this brush to our design. There are few ways to go
- 02:44 about doing this,
- 02:45 but I think the most non-destructive way to do so would be to add a layer mask to
- 02:49 our shape,
- 02:50 and then paint around the edges, which will give us the illusion that snow has
- 02:53 fallen onto the shape.
- 02:54 At the bottom of your layers panel, click on the ‘add a mask’ button to
- 02:58 apply a blank layer mask to your shape.
- 03:00 Once that's done, we need to make sure that our shape's path is active.
- 03:04 Depending on the color of your shape, you may or may not be able to visibly see
- 03:08 the path.
- 03:08 If you take a look at the vector mask thumbnail in your layers panel, 65 00:03:12,489 --> 00:03:15,590 you should see a broken frame around each corner.
- 03:15 This indicates that the path is active. If you don't see this frame,
- 03:19 click on the vector mask to activate it. Once the path is
- 03:22 activated, we need to stroke the path. I mean to stroke the path,
- 03:26 which basically means we're going to tell Photoshop to paint airbrush
- 03:29 completely around our shape.
- 03:31 The long way of doing this would be to grab your pen tool,
- 03:35 right click on the path to stroke path,
- 03:38 make sure that brush is the tool selected, ‘simulate pressure’ is off
- 03:42 and press OK. But that's a hassle.
- 03:46 A quick way of doing all these steps is: with your brush tool
- 03:50 active, simply press the Return or Enter key on your keyboard.
- 03:53 I can apply to stroke two or three times to ensure that the border the shape gets
- 03:57 nicely covered.
- 03:58 Once you've applied the stroke a few times, increase the size your brush by
- 04:02 pressing your right square bracket key a few times.
- 04:04 And then apply two more strokes by pressing Return or Enter.
- 04:07 Continue this process until you're happy with the way the mask is looking.
- 04:11 I'm going to stop around 125 pixels, to avoid losing too much quality on my brush.
- 04:16 Clicking on the vector mask in your layers panel will hide the path, allowing
- 04:19 you to see the border of your shape.
- 04:21 If there are any areas that look too sharp, decrease the size of your brush
- 04:25 and paint over those leftover bits. It's looking quite nice, but we need to add a
- 04:29 few layer styles.
- 04:30 For one, add the gradient and two, add a bit of an edge to the snow.
- 04:34 Let's start with a gradient overlay. This will be a super simple gradient.
- 04:39 Before editing the gradient, set your angle at 90 degrees.
- 04:42 As for the gradient's color, the left color will be the lighter of the two.
- 04:46 I can use 13 7F E4 for the value.
- 04:51 The right color will be the darker one: 08 23 63.
- 04:54 Good, the gradient is complete.
- 04:58 Next will be the bevel and emboss. This will give a little bit of an edge to our
- 05:02 snow.
- 05:03 For the structure, set the style to emboss, the direction to down
- 05:08 and the size to 24. Down under shading,
- 05:12 turn off global light and change the altitude to 60 degrees.
- 05:15 The angle could be left at 120. Because we're going to deal with the highlight
- 05:20 of the snow using a drop shadow,
- 05:21 turn this value down to zero. For the shadow, turn the opacity up to 100%
- 05:27 and then choose a medium blue for the color. I'll use the value 1B 61 B0.
- 05:31 That should leave you leave with a nice dark edge.
- 05:35 Now, we need to add a slight light edge with the drop shadow.
- 05:40 Because we're looking for a highlight, rather than a shadow, set the blend mode
- 05:43 to overlay,
- 05:45 set your color to a pure white and then change the opacity
- 05:48 to 100%. Down below, set the distance at 10
- 05:53 and the size at five. And that should do it. Now, if you want to get
- 05:56 really fancy, you can bring in additional textures to fill in the middle of the heart.
- 06:01 Once you place your picture on top in the shape, right click on the layer in
- 06:04 the layers panel,
- 06:05 and create a clipping mask. If the texture disappears, which it probably
- 06:09 will,
- 06:09 turning off the greedy overlay should expose that texture.
- 06:13 If you want to get really fancy-schmancy, grab an image,
- 06:16 clip it, set the blend mode to screen and decrease your opacity a little bit.
- 06:21 Add a basic white stroke and a drop shadow to finish it off.
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