[tweetmeme]In Apple’s recent iCloud and iOS5 keynote, a vast array of brushed aluminium style icons were used. In this tutorial we learn how to create an incredible iCloud style aluminium icon in just a few minutes.

It’s been a real rush to launch this episode (these video tutorials aren’t quick to make!) but I’m very excited to be able to offer the first full tutorial for creating these icons with a freshly pioneered method. You saw it here on PhotoGuides first!

Better still, the tutorial is versatile enough to allow you to create these aluminium icons with any logo or text embedded, and you’ll hopefully be able to adapt the brushed aluminium methods for use in other images.

As always, PhotoGuides members can download the high definition version of this tutorial and the Photoshop source files. And of course, it is free to join!

To complete this tutorial, you’ll also need to download the iCloud logo file (right click, save as).

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Otherwise I hope you enjoy the tutorial and stay tuned for more!

[tweetmeme]In my first tutorial on Photoshopping sparkling gold text, I used only layer styles to make the text look gold. I promised to churn out another tutorial on the same effect, but twice as realistic and awesome. So here we are. Without further ado let’s get to work.

Step 1

I started with a document of 750 x 500 pixel RGB document with a resolution of 150 px and a white background.

Step 2

I created some text using the font ‘Times New Roman’ at the size of 100 points. The color of the text does not matter.

Step 3

Click on the text layer thumbnail to make a selection of the text area.
When you have ‘running ants’ selection around your text area, turn off the text layer visibility by clicking off the eye icon next to the layer.
Make a new layer on top of the text layer.
Now let’s fill the selection by using a gradient. I am going to use the Gold gradient that I created in my previous gold text tutorial. Since all the relevant details are explained in that tutorial, I’m not going to delve on creating the gradient.

Now we fill the selected text area with the gold gradient we have. Click on the gradient tool and select the gold gradient. Also don’t forget to check that you’re using the Linear gradient and not anything else.
Now place the Gradient tool crosshair on top of the canvas and drag to the bottom of the canvas while pressing the Shift key. Since we had a selection of the text area on, the gradient will fill only the selection.

Step 4

Now comes the fun part. What we’ll be using is the Channels!
Since you did not deselect, the selection will be still active.
Go to the Channels palette. As we’re working on an RGB document, you will have four layer like things on the Channels palette, all which are selected. (I won’t go explaining about the channels or there workings today. But I’m planning to come up with a tutorial on channels in future).

Channels Palette… Yikes

With the selection active, press the ‘Save selection as channel’ button. Once you do that, you will see a new channel at the bottom of the channels stack. This will be automatically named as Alpha 1.

If you click on the Alpha 1 channel, visibility of the other channels will be turned off, leaving you with white text on a black background.

Step 5

Since your selection is active, you will see the running ants. Without deselecting, go to Edit » Stroke. Make a stroke of 3 px with the colour as Gray. Select the location as Inside. Leave the rest of the settings as they are and hit OK. Now you will have something like this.

Step 6

With your selection active, go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian blur. Type a radius of 4.0 pixels and hit OK.
Next press Ctrl + D to deselect and apply a Gaussian blur again, this time with a radius of 1 pixel. Now the text will look blurred.

Click on the RGB channel and the Alpha 1 channel visibility will be turned off automatically. As you can see nothing has changed. You may even wonder why go through the trouble of creating an extra channel. More fun is yet to come!

Step 7

Go back to Layers panel and click on the top most layer on the layer stack to ensure that you are back on the RGB channel. Now go to Filter » Render » Lighting Effects. Now you’ll be presented with a dialog box with numerous controls.

Adjust the controls according to the above diagram. You will see why we created the new channel here. Select the Alpha 1 as the Texture Channel and press OK. Now you will see that we have a very realistic looking gold text. Doesn’t that look amazing?

You can position the spot light to suit your taste by dragging the center point. By adjusting the four handles around the spotlight, you can adjust how the light falls on the text. You can also place multiple spotlights. As I always say experiment and see what appeals to your eye.

Step 8

Since everything is completed, you can stop here. Or you can some add more effects for a juicier look. Since I chose to do more for your benefit, let’s go to the original text layer, make it visible and apply some layer effects. I’m not going to delve long on this and provide you with screen shots since it will make this tut loooooong. But I will tell you what I applied.
Drop shadow : with default settings
Outer Glow : Blend mode – Hard light, Opacity – 16%, Color of the glow – F0CC4E, Spread – 7%, Size – 70 px, Range – 100%
Stroke : Size – 1 px, Position – Outside, Color – Black, Opacity – 14%

The reason that we’re not applying this effect to the Original gold text is that, with the Lighting effects applied, it may have unexpected and ugly effects. Therefore, to be on the safe side, apply the effects to the text layer.
Note: If you have gone through my previous tuts, you may have noted that I always apply a small stroke around the text. This small stroke can make a huge difference by making the object of focus to stand out from the back ground. You can compare the images on step 7 and step 8 to discern my point.

Step 9

Fill your background with an appropriate color to make the text stand out. I used a dark green with a hint of grey in a circular gradient and added some noise to it for texture. And here’s what we have. A very realistic looking gold text with an eerie glow!

Compared to the previous method, you will see that the gold finish created by this method is more realistic. There are amazing things you can do with Channels. With proper manipulation, you can create realistic silver, chrome, bronze and many more effects. The key to success is experimenting. With that, the possibilities are endless.

I hope this tutorial helped you to learn something new. I will come up with another tutorial, which I am yet to decide on. As always, your comments are very welcome as they keep me motivated. Until next time, Ciao!

[tweetmeme]Gold, one of the most sought after metals in the world, is used in coins and jewelry, as a store of value, electronics, medicinal purposes and in many other possible ways you can think of. Entire civilizations have been wiped out because of the greed for gold. Even today many people fight to own this precious metal.

But since we’re talking about phostoshopping gold text, I’d stop my rambling and let’s get some work done.

Step 1

Create a new file with the required dimensions. I used 750 x 536 px file with a resolution of 150. And of course it is RGB.

The new file

Step 2

Let’s create some text. I typed ‘GOLDEN’ using Times New Roman font. The size used here is 75 points. Again don’t worry about the color that you use, since we’re gonna replace it with a gradient overlay.

Step 3

Now the fun part begins. Let’s apply some layer styles. I applied a drop shadow.

After adding the drop shadow

Step 4

Next effect in the line is the Bevel & emboss effect. Increase the Depth field to 150%, Size to 20px and Soften to 2px. Use an angle of 50 degrees and at an Altitude of 0. The Gloss contour must be changed to ‘Half Round’ and turn on Anti alias. I kept the Highlight mode as it is, which is Screen. But I changed the color to Metallic gold (D4AF37) and bumped the opacity to 90%.

After adding the BnE style

Step 5

Next comes a bit of a tricky part, creating the gold gradient. Go to the Gradient overlay options and click on the gradient to edit it.

I used the following colors respectively. Gold (FFD700), Old gold (CFB53B), sunglow (FFCC33), golden poppy (FCC200) and golden yellow (FFDF00).

Applying the gradient...

You can arrange the color stops according to your desire. When you’re done with crating the gradient, it is a good idea to save it for future use as it saves the hassle of creating it from the scratch. You can see that I have changed the angle of the gradient slightly, to 85 degrees instead of the default 90. I won’t go explaining as to why I did it, it just appealed to my eye than the default.

Note: There are more gold related colors you can use on the gradient. But I used only a few. If you’re interested you can use the following colors as well. As I say always, experiment and see what appeals to your eye.

Metallic gold – D4AF37,  satin sheen gold – CBA135, Vegas gold – C5B358, golden brown – 996515.

Step 6

Then I applied a single pixel stroke with golden brown. I changed the position to Centre.

Single pixel Golden brown stroke...

Almost gold...

Step 7

Now the work with text is done. But since the text doesn’t standout on a white background, I applied a nice background. I created a new layer and filled it with Royal Purple (6B3FA0). Now the text we crated stands out nicely.

But since I felt that applying a plain colored background is not enough, I used a rarely used filter in Photoshop on a new layer filled with white. I changed the layer name to ‘BG Texture’. Change the foreground to white and background to black. Go to Filter > Texture > Texturizer. You’ll be presented with a huge dialogue box.

Filter > Texture > Texturizer

Now if you get an error message at this point, it’s because the BG Texture layer is empty. For Texturizer to take effect, the layer must have some pixels on it. Fill it with white.

TIP: To fill a layer there are few commands you can use. One is the Edit > Fill or Shift + F5. From the Fill dialog box, you can chose from a wide variety of commands. But if you need to fill the layer or selection with the foreground color, simply press Alt + Del and to fill with the background color press Ctrl + Del or Ctrl + Backspace.

I changed the Texture to Sandstone, Scaling to 111% and Relief to 15%. Now you’ll be presented with something like this.

Where did the purple background go???? ;(

Now change the layer blend mode to ‘Multiply’. If you think the texture is too  strong, try changing the Fill an Opacity values. Here’s what I got.

Change blend mode to "Multiply" & play with Opacity & Fill... You get a textured background...

Step 8

Again this step is not needed. But I thought of letting you know something new. But some of you might already know this. What would you do if you need to apply the same layer styles, with same values, what would you do. Earlier what I used to do is that. But there is something much simpler. Copy the layer styles and paste them on to the required layer! Here’s how we do it.

I typed the word LETTERS below our GOLDEN text, using 12 point, Times New Roman and I increased the tracking value to 750 (you can locate the tracking value below the leading values on Character palette). You can see as we increase the tracking value, the space between letters begin to expand.

Leading & Tracking on Type Palette

Now we are going to copy and paste the layer styles. Right click on the GOLDEN text layer. At the bottom of the pop-up menu, you’ll find three commands, Copy Layer style, Paste layer style and Clear layer style. Chose the first, Copy layer style. Go to the LETTERS text layer, right click and select Paste layer style. There you are! The layer style is copied as it is to the layer.

Layer Style copied...

But you’ll see instead of the gold color, there is a red/ brown tinge to the text. The reason for this is that the golden brown pixel we applied to the previous text layer. I turned off the stroke option for this text layer, by turning off the “eye” icon next to the Stroke layer style, on the layer palette.

Turn off the Stroke layer style for Letters text layer...

Step 9

If you like a to add a bit of a sparkle to the letters follow these steps. Create a new layer on top of the layer stack and name it sparkle. Select the Brush tool (you can press ‘B’ on the keyboard to activate it) and activate the ‘Assorted Brushes’ library (don’t worry about the availability of this brush set since it comes with the Photoshop). Browse through the brushes and select the one named, Starburst – Small.

Starburst - small

TIP: It’s always a good practice to name the layers. When you have loads of unnamed layers, finding the correct layer is like going through hell…

Size the brush tip to 40px and place the stars randomly on the edges of the text where the gold color is brighter and where the light is more intense. And I forgot to tell you that the foreground color should be set to white.

And there you have it. Nice looking gold text.

Sometimes you may feel that the letters do not have the gold like effect that you wanted it to have. In that case you can try adding an extra layer style, Satin. Play with the controls and see how it can be used. I have applied the Satin style to the text as an added measure. Here’s how the final outcome looks like…

Finished product... What do you think?

But if you still feel bad about the looks, don’t worry. My next tutorial again would be on creating golden text, but with a twist. We’d be using one of the dreaded features in Photoshop to do this! But I won’t be telling what it is, since it’ll spoil all the fun.

Until then master this technique. It’s easy and will be sufficient for most tasks. Until next time, Adios!

[tweetmeme]The discovery of Bronze was important to humankind, since it helped to create better metal objects, especially weapons, than previously possible. Even though it was more brittle than steel, it was much durable than the copper and stone predecessors.

Today, we’re going to create some Bronze from scratch using our alchemist friend, Photoshop.

Step 1

For starters create a new document. I used a new RGB document with dimensions of 1000 px by 500 px, resolution of 150 with white background.

Next I created the word Bronze, using Times New Roman in Bold. The size was 100pt.
When the bronze effect is applied to serif fonts it looks much nicer to me. Well the taste depends and you can use any font and play along. You can use any color for text since we’ll be changing it later using a gradient overlay.

Step 2

Let’s apply the necessary effects. We’ll begin with the drop shadow.

Step 3

Add a gradient overlay. I used the colors ‘A2893B‘ and ‘ EFDC92‘ for this.

Step 4

Here comes the bevel & emboss effect for the 3D look. Using the default settings is okay. But since we are looking forward to getting better results, let’s play with the controls.
In the shading section, change the colors of the highlight mode to ‘CBB164′ and the shadow mode to ‘ FEE39A’.

Step 5

Now it’s almost complete. Add a 1px stroke using the color ‘6f6329‘.

Step 6

We’re going to add a brushed look to our bronze text.
Crate a new layer and fill it with any color. Name the layer as ‘Brushed’.
Change the background and foreground colors to default by pressing ‘D’.
Now render some fibers using a variance of 15.0. Crank up the Strength all the way up to 64.0 and press OK.  

Note: The reason for filling the layer with a color before rendering the fibers is, unlike clouds, fibers cannot be rendered on an empty layer.  It doesn’t matter what color you fill the layer with, but keep an eye on the background and foreground colors, as it affects the color of fibres.

Keeping the ‘Brushed’ layer highlighted and apply a motion blur. Use an angle of 90 degrees and push the distance slider all the way up.  
Click OK. You have some gray colored lines above your text now.

Press Ctrl + T to go to free transform mode. Rotate the layer 45 degrees and drag the handles until you completely cover the Bronze text.
Ctrl + click on the text layer thumbnail to select the text area and highlight the Brushed layer. Press the ‘Add layer mask‘ button at the bottom of the layer palette. Now the text area should be covered with gray lines.

On the ‘Brushed’ layer, lower the opacity to 15% and the fill to 90%.

I also added a maroon colored background of the colour ’790000′ and a gradient to enhance the look of the text. Your layers palette may look like this now.

Voila!! Now you have a nice brushed look to your Bronze text. Here’s the end result…

You can also add gradients and other what-not to add realism. The key is not to be afraid and playing with controls. That is the key to learning Photoshop. The possibilities are endless.

Remember, you can always download the PSD file for this tutorial below in the Members Get More panel.

Until we meet again with another tutorial, Adios!

[tweetmeme]Taken a great old school picture, but don’t know what to do with it? In this tutorial we’re going to learn how to transform it into an old fashioned polaroid in photoshop. In a few simple steps you can create a polaroid with your own picture!

PhotoGuides Members can also download the PSD file for this tutorial. It’s a very handy file to have and will really help you follow the tutorial, or alternatively, you could simply drag your own photo into the PSD file where the polaroid effect is already applied! You can download it at the bottom of this tute.

Step 1

Create a new file with these dimensions:

500 width
600 height

Step 2

Go to file>place and place your picture. I find that the best pictures for polaroids are the ones with warm colors.

Step 3

First we are going to photoshop the picture to get that old school polaroid feeling.
Duplicate the picture layer (always keep the untouched original). This will be our working layer for the picture.

Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation > Saturation -40

Image > Adjustments > Photofilter > Warming filter (85) > Density: 50%

In the bottom of your layer palette you see seven buttons (the bin, mask, etc.).
Go to the adjusment layer button, click on it and create a gradient map. Now we have our own gradient layer. Why? Well if you create a gradient on the layer you can’t play with the blending/opacity options because its already on your picture. (you can do this with al the steps: saturation and photofilter)

So once you’ve got your gradient screen on, search for the orange/purple gradient (its a standard gradient) and press ok. Go to your blending options and change it to ‘screen’ with an opacity of 80%.

The picture is now done. We have a nice old feeling picture. Create a new group and name it ’Photo’. Put all your photo files in it. This is important because if you get many layers you can get confused. Also, to help with your organisation, it’s best to always name your layers!

Step 4

Now we are going to work on our polaroid.

Layer > New > Layer ( or press cmd/ctrl + shift + n) and call it ‘Polaroid’

Fill the layer with this color: fff7e7.

Take out your rectangular marquee tool and create a nice square on the polaroid layer and press delete. It’s beginning to look like a polaroid, just a few more adjusments.

Select your photo group and move it until you have a the best piece of the picture in the square.

Select your polaroid layer again, go to blending options and click on drop shadow. Put in these numbers:

Now we still have that hard line next to the drop shadow. So create another square with your rectangular marquee tool, just a bit bigger then the square we have now (like 2 mm bigger on all sides) and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur> 0.6, and press ok. Now we’ve gotten rid of the hard line.

Step 5

The polaroid still doesn’t have the old feeling. We are going to accomplish this with an old paper texture which you can download from here.

Place the old paper texture and set the blending mode to multiply with an opacity of 10% (why so low? because we only need a little texture, not alot).

Step 6

Now we are going to vignette the edges of the picture. Again this is for the old school feeling. Create a new layer (Cmd/cntrl + Shift + N) and take out your brush tool with an opacity of 25 %. Drag the layer beneath the polaroid layer and brush a little bit around the inside edges of the polaroid (make sure you choose the correct layer!).

Step 7

Well our polaroid is almost finished! We only need some text on the bottom (optional)

Search for a nice font (hand written fonts are nice for polaroids).

Type your text (my text is Old School Polaroid > Brush Script MT) and put the opacity on 80% so it blends in.

If you followed these steps, you know should have a nice old school looking polaroid. In a few simple steps you created a good looking result. I hope you learned from it, and if you have some questions you can always ask them and I will gladly help you.

[tweetmeme]A portrait itself can be nice, and good looking. But if you like taking photos of people, I’m sure you have experienced the boring light which sometimes appears. Fortunately, our dear friend Photoshop can help us making almost any portrait look better. You know, like the ones you see in magazines, where they claim L’oreal makes you look all better.

If you have a boring portrait, or just want to make one more exciting, follow these 6 easy steps.

The image I used in this tutorial can be downloaded at here, courtesy of Chris Burfoot.

Step 1

First off, we want to select all the highlights by pressing Ctrl +  Alt + 4 (Mac: cmd + alt + 4). 
Choose Layer (1), New and Layer via Copy. Set the blendingmode in the layer to Screen (2), then the picture will get brighter. This layer only consists of highlights, so it’s especially the bright areas which will get affected by this.

Step 2

Now we want to blur the skin, but leave the rest of the picture untouched, and filled with details.
Go to Filter (1) and choose Convert for Smart Filters to only apply the effect on selected areas.
Click OK when the box pops up. Go ahead and choose Filter (1), Blur and Gaussian Blur….
Set the Radius to 8 pixels (2), and click OK (3). Your picture may need more or less blur, but i found that 8 fits most pictures. So if you are unsure what looks best, just go with 8.

Step 3

In this step, we want to remove the blur from the hair. Click one the layermask Smart Filters (1) and choose Brush Tool (2). Use a soft brush (a soft brush is hardness set to either 0, or something very low. I used 0) and set the master diameter to about 200 px (3) and make sure to set the foreground color to black (4).
Paint on the hair. It can be hard to tell where you have painted, but here’s a trick which makes it alot easier. Press Shift + Alt while clicking on the layermask (1). Now your painting becomes red.

Step 4

Choose the Zoom Tool (1) and zoom in on the persons face. Again, choose the Brush Tool (2), but this time use a smaller diameter, about 50 px (3). What you need to do now is paint on the eyes, nostrals and a little bit around them, the mouth and other details, which you don’t want to get blurred. You also need to paint along the face and neck. If you paint wrong, you can just press the X key to change the foreground color to white, and paint over. When you are done, go ahead and press the Shift + Alt key again on the layermask.

Step 5

Choose Layer 1 (1), hold the Ctrl-key (Mac: cmd-key) and press the ‘J’ three times to make the picture brighter. It is important to notice that particular move is very individual. On the picture I made for this tutorial, I only copied the layer twice, otherwise it would have been to bright in my opinion.
Click the Create new fill or adjustment  layer (2) and choose Curves… (3). Click half way up the line (4), and three/fourth (5) to lock the highlight and middletones. Next, grab a spot one/fourth up the line (6) and drag this down to make the shadows a little bit darker. Click the layermask (7), choose the Brush Tool (8), and use a big (200px-370px) black (9) brush on the darkest areas of the hair. This is individual, you might like to lighten up the dark areas, but i found that it doesn’t suit all pictures.

Step 6

At last we want to give the picture more powerful colors, as they sometimes get a little mat.
Click the Create new fill or adjustment layer (1) and choose Hue/Saturation…(2). Make the Saturation (3) to +25 (again, this step can also vary, but +25 is a good universal value). As you can see, the colors can get to powerful some places, so: Click the layermask (4), and choose Brush Tool (5) and black (6) as the foreground color. Set the Opacity to 50% (7), and paint on those places which has too much color.

And that’s it! Save the picture and go experiment on your other portraits!

[tweetmeme]Today we are going to make an old film style grainy black and white photo using adjusments filters, noise filters and much more. We will look at the difference between different adjustment filters like ‘black and white’ and the saturation adjustment. Which one will we use? Well lets find that out!

Step 1:
Search for a nice picture. For this tutorial I will be using a photo of a beach (im living on Curacao at the moment so the beach is my life). I got this one from sxc.hu (a very good FREE stock site). Of course it would be nicer to take one that you made yourself.

Open it up in photoshop and name it original.

Step 2:
It will be a black and white project so thats what we will do first. Im going to show you the difference between some adjusment filters.

Black and white:
Press on the black and white circle so it opens up the slider for the adjustments.

Select the ‘Black & White’ filter. When you open it you see alot of black to white sliders, just like in the image below. Every slider will make a color in the picture more intense white or black. As you can see we are able to customize it. However there are no standard variables so you will need to play with it until you are satisfied. Ensure you make the focus point the most intense. In this image, I wanted the beach and the island at the back to be the most eye catching part of this photo.

Hue/saturation:
The hue/saturation filter is also an option for creating a black and white image, but you can’t customize it. If you use this option just push the saturation slider all the way to -100. Now you also have a grayscale image but when you do this the image becomes flat. So we won’t be using this for this tutorial. Using the method above will allow you to have much more control over the tones within your image.

Ok, now you should have a black and white image! time for the next step.

Step 3:
Lets finish the “photoshop” work by adding a curve adjustment filter. Again you need to play with it because its different with every image. Experiment with how the curves can change the tones within your picture. Make sure you don’t overdo this step, just some slight changes are good enough.

Step 4 (optional):
Well my image didn’t have a good focus so I blurred the image. When you do this, duplicate your original layer, and then on the new layer go to filter>blur>blur, and then erase the layer around the parts you wanted sharp. Now I have my focus points fixed. Because this step is optional I won’t be spending alot of time in it. So lets go to the next step.

Step 5:
Lets add some noise. Create a new layer (cmd/ctrl + Shift+ N) and click image > apply image. Now you have the blurred layer and the original on a new layer. You need to do this or you will be placing your noise on the wrong layer.

Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise…

Again don’t overdo this, a little bit noise is good enough. I put mine on 2,5%.

Well thats it, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I hope to see you for my next tutorial, Request are welcome!

[tweetmeme]Most of us now use a handy little tool in Photoshop for correcting an stylizing our photographs, That’s right, ACTIONS! You got to love ‘em.
But if you’re like me you want your subject to pop, and actions sometimes seem to flatten the colors of your image especially of your subject. So hopefully this quick tip will help us all out.

Sometimes even the best photographers aren’t able to get their colors to pop with their camera. Thankfully with Photoshop we can add vivid lighting and colours to create the vibrant images such as the ones on O2.co.uk or in photography books.

First, lets take a look at our image. The whole process of fixing an image this way should only take a few minutes once you get the hang of it.

It looks alright but their faces seem to washed out so we going to ahead and ad some color.
First thing we need is a new layer, so you can add one by going to Layer > New Layer.

(Note: be sure the adjustment layer you create is above the image you want to colorize )

Now we can grab a nice cream color and get ready to paint on the layer we just created.

Now paint on our new layer wherever you want the color to pop on your subject (i.e the face).

So far so good. Now, we need to see what we’re doing, so pull the opacity down to see where everything is.

When I’m adding color like this, I normally erase the color where the eyes are, and maybe the lips. But thats up to you, I think though that it helps to have the adjustment layer effect only what you need it too, in this case the face.

We’re almost done! Just go and change the blend mode on your new layer from Normal to Soft light

To add some depth, I may add a little touch of a light red on their cheeks.

Now we’re done! If you want your can erase the edges of the colored layer and keep the colors only in the face.

And there you have it, hope you all enjoyed this quick tip for adding a healthy glow to your images!

[tweetmeme]Neons were invented by accident over 300 years ago when a scientist shook a test tube. At the time though, their discovery was useless because they had no understanding of electricity. It took another 200 years for the concept to be rediscovered, and they called their invention ‘The New Gas’, or, as it was known in Greek, ‘Neon’.

Regardless of how many times I see this image, its realism still amazes me. Neon’s are a great way to feature a title, logo or any other text, and in this tutorial we learn how to transform a simple piece of text into an unbelievable glowing neon, complete with wall mounts and a brick wall to hold it up.

In order to complete this tutorial you will need to download the brick wall image. This is a members only download, but it is free to join.
You may also like to use the Museo typeface that I used in this tutorial. You can grab this for free on MyFonts. Just click ‘Buying Choices’ and you’ll see that Museo 300, 500 and 700 are all available for free. I used Museo 300 in this tutorial.

This tutorial was originally developed by abduzeedo, so I must give credit to them. I’ve been in contact with Fabio, the founder of abduzeedo, and we’ll be working together to bring you more photoguides video tutorials of the amazing abduzeedo tutorials in the future. Thanks again Fabio!

All questions, queries and comments are welcome down below, and feel free to share your own creations either in the comments section, or by putting them up on the PhotoGuides Flickr group.

Good luck!

[tweetmeme]Adding a reflection is one of the simplest, nicest effects you can apply to an image. Better still, it only takes one or two minutes. In this PhotoShop Quick Tip we go over how to add a reflection to an image or graphic in just a few simple steps.

Step 1:
Open up your image in Photoshop. For this tutorial, I’m using the PhotoGuides logo

Step 2:
Duplicate the layer you wish to create a reflection of, and select the layer on the bottom.

Step 3:
Enter transform mode by pressing control+T or command+ T, right click and select ‘Flip Vertically’.

Step 4:
Drag the newly flipped layer below your current layer. The image is now in place to have the reflection applied.

Step 5:
Add a Layer Mask to the flipped image. This can be done by clicking the icon shown in the image below.

Step 6:
Use the gradient tool with the colours as black and white, and draw a gradient from the top of your reflected image to the bottom.

Step 7:
Finally, reduce the opacity of the reflection layer to around 30-40%.

That’s all there is to it. Adding a reflection is a very easy process, and the results are stunning. Once you’ve done this once or twice, adding a reflection will become almost second nature, and you’ll be able to whip one up in just seconds.
Good luck!

[tweetmeme]Lately LetterPress has become a real trend in web design. For those unfamiliar with the effect, LetterPress gives the impression that words and letters have actually been pressed or bevelled inwards. It’s not hard to see why it’s so popular. LetterPress is stylish, very simple, and it’s third dimension allows it to catch the eye without being overpowering. It’s very easy too, and only takes a few minutes. Here’s how to apply the LetterPress typography effect in photoshop.

Step 1:

Open a new canvas in photoshop and paint a new colour to the background. Radial Gradients work well here. As you can see I’ve chosen a gradient of light greys, with the lightest colour glowing from the bottom of the canvas.

Step 2:

Type your word in and choose the colour of your text. The colour should be white, black, or a lighter or darker version of your background colour. As you can see, I’ve chosen white which conforms with the grey background.
The LetterPress effect works significantly better on larger sized text, and bold fonts work much more effectively. I’m using Museo with the weight as 700 and the size at 150pt. The settings in the next few steps apply mainly to text around 150pt. If your text is smaller, just use smaller sizes and depths. Likewise for larger fonts, use larger numbers in the settings.

Step 3:

Add a gradient overlay to your word. Set the colours to black and white, and reduce the opacity to around 5-10%. Your gradient needs to be subtle, and the lighter colours work better at the top.

Step 4:

Add an Inner Shadow to the text. This will give the effect that the text has been pressed into the surface. The depth of the inner shadow determines how far inwards the text is pressed, but I tend to find that less is more. Set the colour to black and reduce the opacity to 40%. The size and depth may change slightly depending on the size of the text you’re using (the size I used was 150pt). I’ve gone with a depth of 2px and a size of 4px. Also setting the angle at 120 degrees tends to be the most effective. The angle we use here will depict the position of the light source. 120 is a fairly natural angle, and it also helps to add the third dimension.

Step 5:

Add a light Drop Shadow. The shadow helps to give the effect that the edges are curved, as though they are beveled inwards. In order for the effect to be optimal, we need to once again consider that less is more. I’ve gone with a distance of 0px because all corners of the text will be beveled, as well as an angle of 120 degrees to be consistent with the light source and the inner shadow. Also, the colour is very important. In order to make the lighting of the text realistic, your shadow needs to be darker than the darkest colour in your background. This can easily be achieved by setting the colour to black and reducing the opacity to between 30% and 60%, depending on the darkness of your colour. That way, if you’ve got a red background, the shadow will appear dark red. Likewise with blue and every other colour.

Step 6 (optional, but worth doing):

Add some noise to your background. This light noisy texture adds to the realism off the pressed in letters. It looks like paper, or a notepad, or something else you’d imagine letters could be pressed into. I’ve gone with uniform, monochromatic noise with the amount set to 3%. Once again, i’m being minimalistic.

But I’ve got small font and it looks crappy with these settings:

Just use smaller numbers for the settings. I’ve based my figures around a font size of 150pt. If your font is significantly smaller, then just use 2 or 3 for the inner shadow depth instead of 4, or whichever number makes it look good.

That’s really all there is to it. The LetterPress effect is very simple to apply and produces great results. It’s simple, modern and incredibly stylish. Just remember to be minimalistic and all should be well.

[tweetmeme]If you’ve ever seen the show Heroes then you’ll no doubt remember the stunning eclipse intro. It’s only a few seconds long, but in my opinion it’s one of the best intros on television, mainly due to its simplicity and its stunning design. In this tutorial, we learn how to recreate that solar eclipse image in a slightly retro style using nothing but photoshop.

In order to complete this tutorial, there is a grunge paper file you’ll need to download, which is available for free to all Photo Guide members. Remember though, it is free to join.

This has probably been the hardest tutorial I’ve produced to date, mainly because of its length. I was very lucky not to go over 10 minutes. I think it took about 30 minutes to create the image, and then 3 nights of editing it together and recording voiceovers (I recorded around 200 voiceover tracks for this episode which I think is a new personal record). It was certainly worth it though because it produces such a stunning image.

I must give credit to Abduzeedo for this great tutorial. I’ve been in contact with Fabio, the owner of Abduzeedo, and he’s allowed me to create screen casts like this of his tutorials, so I’m looking forward to bringing you even more screen casts like this one.

That’s really all there is to mention. Good luck and feel free to share your creations in the comments below.

[tweetmeme]In photography, bokeh is one of the most incredible implementations of Aperture, as seen in this inspiring collection. The shallow depth of field causes any light in the background to blur into a floating orb.
In this tutorial, we go through how to create bokeh using Photoshop, with simply beautiful results.

Bokeh is derived from the Japanese word ‘Boke’ which means blur or haze. In the late 1990s though, when ‘boke’ photography was becoming popular, the word was changed to ‘bokeh’ to help us english speaking people say it properly.

I honestly believe this is one of the greatest tutorials on PhotoGuides to date, partly because it shows you how to create such a beautiful image, but also because it opens peoples eyes to the power of the brushes engine, and this demonstration can expand peoples abilities on Photoshop enormously.

The method I teach in this tutorial was originally developed by abduzeedo. When I was experimenting with how to create digital bokeh, I felt their tutorial showed the best way to do it, and thus decided to simply share their method in the podcast (with permission of course), so thanks for letting me share it.

As usual, the Photoshop source file and a high quality download of this tutorial is available for free to all PhotoGuides members.
You can also download the digital bokeh image from the tutorial as a wallpaper over here in the freebies section.

Good luck!

[tweetmeme]Scrapbooks are a great way to preserve a memory. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a high resolution digital scrapbook on photoshop, including torn paper, sticky tape, handwriting and spilt ink.

This is a method I created in mid 2008 when I was designing pages for the school magazine. I had to create 5 pages for the year 12 class, featuring a selection of photos from their valedictory dinner and all of the students names. As a result, this technique can be used to create great full page spreads. The paper file is almost A3 quality, and the sticky tape and torn paper is realistic enough to be viewed in large.

There are a number of files you may need to complete this tutorial yourself. The paper file and the sticky tape file are available to members only, but you can join for free. Once you’ve logged in, the ‘Members Get More’ image above will turn into download links for these files.

You can however download the fonts and brushes via the links below:

Download the Ink Spill Brushes

Courtesy of Inobscuro.

Download the PC friendly Handwriting Fonts

Courtesy of Free Fonts.

In this tutorial I create a scrapbook themed on ‘The Simunye Project’. This is a community service experience I went on to South Africa in early 2009. If you’re interested in hearing more about The Simunye Project head over to The Simunye Project website. You might also like to have a look at Simunye 3096, a time lapse video I created about my experience.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the tutorial. I find that the little components of this tutorial can be very handy when creating other pieces on photoshop (the torn paper section in particular).

Good Luck!

I’ve heard rumors that the podcast version is a lot more excellent.

[tweetmeme]President Obama’s ‘Hope’ poster is one of the most recognisable pieces of street art of all time, and is being called a cultural phenomenon. Created by Shepard Fairey, this poster became instantly viral and played a huge part in the success of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to apply the same effect to your own photo using nothing but Photoshop.

This certainly is the most complicated tutorial I’ve produced to date, and that’s largely because this effect (as far as I’m aware) has never been replicated on only photoshop. Through my research the only tutorials I found incorporated Adobe Illustrator. As a result, I had to experiment and create my own method.

Download the original photo.

This is the original photo I’ve used in the tutorial.

Download the Obama Pattern (right click > Save as)

In order to create your own ‘Hope’ poster, you’ll need to download this pattern by right clicking the link and selecting save as. You can easily install this by simply double clicking the file. The pattern should then appear in photoshop.

Download the Nevis Font (Link)

You might also like to download the ‘Nevis’ font, which you can find over at Ten by Twenty. The original uses the font ‘Gotham’, but this is a font you have to purchase. Nevis is the closest free font I could find.

This is the ‘Hope’ poster I created in the tutorial:

Good luck!

By publishing this tutorial, PhotoGuides is in no way endorsing any political party or belief. The tutorial is simply to demonstrate the method used to create this artistic piece.

What’s this blue hyperlink? I think it’s the Podcast Version.

[tweetmeme]When Apple first released OSX, the benchmark for computer design was set to a new level. This was largely because of their Aqua theme.

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to recreate the famous Aqua wallpaper in just a few minutes using photoshop.

Once you’ve created your image you might like to fiddle with the hue, saturation and brightness of your background layer. I find that adjusting these properties (especially dragging the brightness right down) adds new dimensions to these wallpapers and allows you to create fluent and unique designs. This tutorial certainly has a lot of potential.

Here’s the version I created in the tutorial:

Good luck!

Don’t forget to check out the Podcast on iTunes.

Apple has forever been a trendsetter in design. Not only are their products timelessly elegant, but their photoshop and advertising work is simply beautiful and highly recognized. Campaigns like iPod Graffiti are worldly renowned and seen as an apple icon, and more recently, these iPhone Application Icons have been stepping forward as an Apple trademark.

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create the glass style iPhone icons and buttons. You’ll be able to choose your own colours and integrate your own logo or text into it.

Here’s the version i created in the tutorial:

Good Luck!

Let’s not forget the podcast version

Tiny Planets are amazing little things that are surprisingly easy to create. All you need is a panoramic photo, Photoshop, the most basic of understandings and a few minutes.
Here then is a guide to help you make Tiny Planets of your very own.

If the video guide is a bit too quick for your liking, there’s also a text and image step by step guide for you to follow.

Thanks again to mm_leones from flickr for letting me use his photo.
He also has plenty more panoramic images in his collection.
hegarty_david from flickr has also offered his 360 degrees panoramas to be used and most of them will work quite nicely.

There’s a Podcast version too, and it likes you.

Ever since apple started the campaign a few years ago, iPod graffiti has been immensely popular and is one of the most recognized and effective trademarks in advertising today. In this guide you’ll learn how to create your own iPod graffiti photo in a few simple steps.

Once you’ve got the basics covered you’ll be able to explore a wide range of customizations to make your photo truly unique.

There are a few resources you’ll need to try this for yourself:
The original photo, by Néstor Baltodano
or you could search Flickr for your own.
Grunge Brushes
More Grunge Brushes
Grunge Corners (very handy)

This is the photograph created in the guide:

Also, if your internet doesn’t like this Vimeo version and its high quality and size, it might get along better with the Youtube Version.

Good luck!

[tweetmeme]Make sure you click this blue bit of text for the Podcast version of this tutorial.

Tilt Shift Photography is the latest ‘big thing’ in the photo world. It uses a very shallow Depth of Field to transform a scene into a tiny toy from a tiny world. It may only be in my eyes, but lately it’s popping up all over the place and is showing some truly spectacular and eye catching results. However, Tilt Shift Photography is very difficult to create in camera. It involves a special lens and of course a lot of money to buy it. Here then is a guide for all you Photoshop owners so that you can create the incredible effect on your own photos with a few simple steps.

Here then is a video guide to creating your own Tilt Shift photos using Photoshop. Remember there’s also a text and image based guide for you to follow along to.

Also, if your internet doesn’t like this Vimeo version and it’s high quality and size, there’s a youtube version as well.