Locked lesson.
About this lesson
The design result in this tutorial is very specific, but the result looks great and introduces you to some of the more creative ways to use Bevel and Emboss. So these are great skills to have up your sleave whenever you need to give your project that extra lift.
Exercise files
Download the Photoshop file used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Create a Realistic Wax Seal.psd7 MB
Quick reference
Topic
Create a realistic looking wax seal.
When to use
The design result in this tutorial is very specific, but the result looks great and introduces you to some of the more creative ways to use Bevel and Emboss. So these are great skills to have up your sleave whenever you need to give your project that extra lift.
Instructions
Create your document
- 1280 by 720 pixel document
- Fill with a dark background
Create the first circle
- Use the Ellipse Tool to draw out a perfect circle, by holding down the Shift key
- With layer selected, choose from Dropdown, Filter: Convert to Smart Filter
- Filter menu, Distort and then choose Wave:
- Generators: 4, Amplitude: 1 and 17, Scales: 100%, Undefined Areas: repeat edge pixels
- Gradient Overlay: Style: Radial, Gradient Color Left: b1 3b 3b, Gradient Color Right: 64 1d 1d,
- Bevel And Emboss: Global Light: Off, Depth: 300, Size: 18, Style: Inner Bevel, Technique: Smooth, Highlight Mode: Screen, Shadow Mode: Overlay, Shadow Opacity: 50%, Color: White, Soften: 3, Altitude: 40, Gloss Contour: Ring Contour, Anti-Alias: On, Switch On Contour check box, rounded steps, Anti-Alias: On, Range: 100%
- Add a texture: Marbled Pattern, Scale: 100%, Depth: 10%
- Drop Shadow: Size: 7, Distance: 7
Create the inner circle
- Use the Ellipse Tool to draw out a perfect circle, by holding down the Shift key
- With layer selected, choose from Dropdown, Filter: Convert to Smart Filter
- Filter menu, Distort and then choose ZigZag: Amount: -10, Ridges: 11, Style: Out From Centre
- Advanced Blending: Fill Opacity: 0%,
- Bevel And Emboss: Global Light: Off, Depth: 100, Direction: Down, Size: 25, Angle: 90, Style: Emboss, Highlight Mode: Soft Light, Shadow Mode: Soft Light, Highlight Opacity: 100%, Shadow Opacity: 45%, Soften: 0, Altitude: 40, Switch On Contour check box, Gaussian, Anti-Alias: On, Range: 100%
Duplicate the inner circle
- Command- or Control-J to duplicate the inner circle
- Command- or Control-T to enter Free Transform
- Hold the ALT or Option key as well as the Shift key and drag a corner inwards
- Bevel And Emboss: Global Light: Off, Direction: Up, Size: 10, Soften: 3, Altitude: 30, Contour, Cone Contour, Anti-Alias: On, Range: 100%
Add the text
- Type out text in new layer in the centre of seal
- Advanced Blending: Fill Opacity: 0%,
- Bevel And Emboss: Global Light: Off, Depth: 130, Size: 15, Angle: 120, Style: Emboss, Highlight Mode: Soft Light, Shadow Mode: Multiply, Shadow Opacity: 50%, Altitude: 60.
- 00:04 Hey everyone, whether you're creating a website stationery or just a fun design,
- 00:08 a wax seal always makes things look more professional. Right?
- 00:12 Okay, probably not, but this tutorial will walk you through the process of creating
- 00:16 a wax seal in Photoshop.
- 00:18 Now I encourage you to experiment with the layer styles that
- 00:21 we're going to go through in this video,
- 00:23 to get the exact result that you are looking for. What I create in the next few
- 00:26 minutes will not necessarily be what you envision.
- 00:29 As always, I'm going to start off with a 1280 by 720 pixel document,
- 00:33 with a nice dark background. This will allow us to achieve a nice contrast from
- 00:38 the seal.
- 00:38 Now, with your Ellipse tool active, which you can find in your Tools bar,
- 00:42 draw out a perfect circle by holding down the Shift key, in the middle of your
- 00:46 document.
- 00:46 This will define the size of your seal. Now, to stray away from a perfectly
- 00:50 smooth shape,
- 00:51 let's add a distort filter. But first, to make sure we're able to edit the shape later,
- 00:56 on,
- 00:56 convert it for Smart Filters first. Head up to the filter menu,
- 01:00 and then ‘Convert for Smart Filters’. Once it has been converted, we're going to add a
- 01:04 wave filter.
- 01:05 Head back up to the filter menu, down to ‘distort’
- 01:08 and then choose ‘wave’. The following settings gave me a pretty nice effect
- 01:13 around the edges my shape:
- 01:14 the number generators will be set to 4, the wavelength will be set to 59 and 60,
- 01:20 the amplitude 1 and 17,
- 01:23 both scales will be at 100%. Make sure that type
- 01:27 is at sign, and down at the bottom, make sure undefined areas is set to
- 01:32 ’repeat edge pixels’.
- 01:32 When you apply the filter, you should be left with a pretty nice
- 01:36 ripple effect around the edges of your circle.
- 01:39 Again, if this is not what you envisioned, play around with the settings until
- 01:42 you're happy.
- 01:43 Now we have a shape set, let’s start our layer styles, starting with a gradient overlay.
- 01:48 Before you start adjusting the colors, go ahead and change the style to ‘radial’.
- 01:51 Now, clicking on the gradient bar will bring up our gradient editor:
- 01:55 the left color, which will be the lighter of the two and will act as our highlight,
- 01:59 is going to be a nice light red - b1 3b 3b.
- 02:02 Now on the right will to be the main color for our seal,
- 02:08 it’s going to be a little bit darker: 64 1d 1d.
- 02:12 Once the colors are set, if you want to move the highlights away from the centre
- 02:17 of the seal,
- 02:18 you can simply drag it around your document. Now, hopping into the bevel and
- 02:22 emboss section, we have a lot of settings to go through.
- 02:24 We're going to keep the style at inner bevel, keep the technique at smooth,
- 02:28 but we're going to increase the depth to 300%, we're going to increase the
- 02:32 size to 18,
- 02:32 and increase the soften to 3.
- 02:36 Now, down under shading, make sure to turn off global light,
- 02:40 set the angle at -90 degrees and the altitude at 40%.
- 02:44 Now for the gloss contour,
- 02:47 change it to ring contour: this one right here, and turn on
- 02:51 anti-alias. This will just make sure that the edges are nice and smooth.
- 02:54 Now for the highlight mode, keep the blend mode on screen, and the color at
- 02:58 white, but decrease the opacity to around 50%. Now, for the shadow mode we're
- 03:02 going to change the blend mode to overlay,
- 03:04 and then decrease the opacity to 50%. Good. We're also going to
- 03:09 add a contour to this bevel and emboss. Under the contour section, change the contour
- 03:13 to the rounded stepped contour,
- 03:15 again turn anti-aliasing on, and increase the range to 100%.
- 03:20 And finally, let's add a texture under the pattern picker.
- 03:24 If you don't have your gray scale paper set loaded in,
- 03:27 click on the arrow at the top right corner and choose gray scale paper,
- 03:31 and then choose append, and when the pop-up window comes up from this list, you want
- 03:34 to look for the marble pattern:
- 03:36 it's this one right over here. When you choose the pattern, keep
- 03:40 the scale at 100%,
- 03:40 but decrease the depth to 10%. Good. The last layer style we're going to add
- 03:45 will be a drop shadow. We'll keep this one very simple.
- 03:48 Increase the distance and size both to 7 - good, this layer's styles are complete. Let's
- 03:53 move on to the next shape.
- 03:54 With ellipse tool active again, draw out a smaller circle
- 03:58 inside the shape that we just worked on. It should only be a few pixels away from
- 04:02 the
- 04:02 inner edges of the larger shape. While you're creating your shape, if you want
- 04:05 to move it around before placing it, hold down the spacebar.
- 04:07 Now again, to pull away from the perfect round edges,
- 04:12 we're going to distort it a little bit – make sure to convert for Smart
- 04:15 Filters first,
- 04:16 and then we're going to add a zigzag filter. Head back up to the filter menu,
- 04:20 ’distort’ and then ‘zigzag’. For the amount, we're going to choose -10,
- 04:26 11 for the ridges and the style is going to be set to ‘out from center’.
- 04:29 That'll give us a very subtle effect around the edges.
- 04:34 When you're happy with the shape, it's time for layer styles.
- 04:37 Now, when you get into the layer styles dialogue box, this time you want to make sure to turn
- 04:40 the fill opacity all the way down to 0%.
- 04:42 This will allow us to see right through the shape, and
- 04:45 will also allow us to add layer styles -
- 04:48 like a bevel and emboss. This time, we're going to change the style to emboss,
- 04:52 keep the depth at 100%, make sure that direction
- 04:56 is set to ‘down’, the size we are going to increase to 25,
- 05:00 and keep the soften at 0. Now, down under ‘shading’ we
- 05:04 want to again turn off global light, change the angle to 90 degrees,
- 05:08 and the altitude to 40 degrees. This time, we're not going to worry about a gloss
- 05:12 contour,
- 05:13 but we're going to change the blend mode and highlight mode to soft light,
- 05:17 and then increase the opacity to 100%.
- 05:21 Now, for shadow mode, you also want to set the blend mode to soft light
- 05:24 and decrease the opacity to 45%.
- 05:27 And to finish off this layer’s styles, we’re going to add a contour to our bevel.
- 05:30 Go ahead and choose the Gaussian contour, turn on anti-alias again,
- 05:34 and increase the range to 100%. That should leave you with a nice
- 05:38 indent in the middle of your seal. Now that the second shape is complete, we want to
- 05:42 create one more shape that's slightly smaller.
- 05:45 To make things easy, start by duplicating the shape that you just created -
- 05:49 this can be done by using the Command or Control J shortcut.
- 05:52 Now, once that’s duplicated, we need to scale it down very slightly.
- 05:56 Enter free transform mode by using the Command or Control T shortcut.
- 06:00 Now go ahead and hold on your ALT or Option key as well as your Shift key,
- 06:04 and then drag any of the corners of the transformer box inwards.
- 06:07 Once it’s in place, press Return or Enter to apply the transformation.
- 06:12 You'll be left with an identical - but smaller – shape, but we don't want it to
- 06:15 be completely identical,
- 06:16 so let's go ahead and alter the layer styles of the newly duplicated shape.
- 06:20 Under bevel and emboss, we're going to change the following settings: the size
- 06:24 will now be set to 10 pixels,
- 06:26 the soften will be set to 3 pixels, the direction will be set back to up,
- 06:31 the altitude will be changed to 30 degrees, and then we might use the
- 06:34 ’rounded steps gloss contour’.
- 06:37 And finally, under the contour section on the left, go ahead and change it to the
- 06:40 ’cone contour’,
- 06:41 make sure that anti-alias is turned on, and the range is set to 100%.
- 06:46 Good. The last element is - of course - the text. You can use any font that you wish,
- 06:50 but a nice curvy font usually works quite well for these designs.
- 06:53 I'm going to be using the ‘Folkard’ font, which I downloaded over at DaFont.com.
- 06:57 I'm going to set the size to 200 and I'll type out a letter in the middle of my
- 07:01 seal.
- 07:03 Once the text is in place, you guessed it, more layer styles!
- 07:07 Once again, you want to make sure to turn the fill opacity down to 0%,
- 07:11 and we will only add one layer style this time: a bevel and emboss.
- 07:15 Go ahead and set the style to emboss, the depth to 130%,
- 07:19 and the size to 15. Now, down under shading, make sure to turn off global light,
- 07:24 make sure the angle is at 120 degrees and the altitude at 60 degrees.
- 07:29 The blend mode for the highlight mode will be set to soft light,
- 07:32 with an opacity of 100%. Then for shadow mode,
- 07:36 just decrease the opacity to 50%. And that'll do it -
- 07:40 you now have a wax seal made completely in Photoshop.
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