Create a Realistic Wax Seal

Quick reference

• 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.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.