Please email me designed.by.stina@gmail.com with your creations. I'd love to see them.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Go Purple for Animals



I've had some positive feedback and a few comments on my Facebook timeline cover which I then converted into a sig-tag, so I decided to write a tutorial. *s*


Supplies

Tube of choice - I am using two tubed images of my own dogs, Ciara and Dexter
Fonts of choice - I am using Copperplate TMed and BickhamFancy Script
Pawprint made by me, available here
Plugins: Penta.com / Jeans
Xero / Soft Mood (optional)
Eye Candy 5 Impact / Gradient Glow (optional, for text)


Open a transparent canvas 850 x 315
(this is the size of a timeline cover)

In your materials palette choose a colour (I'm using #4e2b69) for the foreground and a darker colour like black for your background

Click on the Foreground to open the Material Properties
Select the Gradient tab

Choose the Foreground-Background which should be preset in your gradients
Angle - 45
Repeats - 4
Style - Linear

Flood fill canvas
Then Adjust / Blur / Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 30.00

With your Selection Tool set to Rectangle and Feather to 0, draw out a long narrow rectangle toward the bottom of your canvas from end to end (left to right)
Don't worry about the position - we can reposition it later

Add a new raster layer
Flood fill white
Selections / Modify / Contract by 1
Then flood fill with black
Deselect

Now select the entire canvas
Selections / Select All
Add a new raster layer
Flood fill black
Selections / Modify / Contract by 9
Fllood fill white
Selections / Modify / Contract by 1
Delete the deselect

You should now have something like this:


Now activate the background layer again
Paste a pawprint as a new layer
Image / rotate by 15.00 to the right
Resize by 45%
Position to the left just above the rectangle

Duplicate then Image / Mirror
Position just to the right of the first pawprint
Layers / Merge / Merge Down

Duplicate four times and position each set evenly spaced along the canvas
Turn visibility off all layers but these five sets of pawprints
Layers / Merge / Merge Visible
Turn visibility back on again

Open your Pawprint and paste as new layer
Image / Rotate by 15.00 to the left
Resize by 45% and position to the left above the first set

Adjust / Brightness and Contrast / Brightness/Contrast with the following settings:
Brightness - 50
Contrast - 11

Duplicate then Image / Mirror and position almost between first two sets of pawprints
Layers / Merge / Merge Down
Duplicate four times and position along the top

The last set does not fit so only the left pawprint will be positioned


Turn off all layers but ALL the pawprints
Layers / Merge / Merge Visible
Lower opacity to 50%
Turn visibility back on again
Still on the pawprint layer,
Layers / Merge / Merge Down

Now apply your Jeans filter
Effects / Plugins / Penta.com / Jeans with the following settings:
Amount - 15
Border Width - 4

Open your tube(s) and paste as a new layer
Resize as needed to your liking and position to the far right
I also applied an optional filter to my tubes as follows:

Duplicate tube and apply Xero / Soft Mood with default settings
Lower opacity to around 55 to 65% - depending on your tube and to your liking
Layers / Merge Down
Repeat for second tube, if using one

Now activate the Rectangle layer

Open your Pawprints and resize by around 35%
Position to the right on the narrow rectangle we drew out
Duplicate, then Image / Mirror
Layers / Merge Down

Now with your block print font (I used Copperplate TMed), type out a few words of your choice
Make sure you type the word as a Vector layer
Position the text to the right then grab the middle left node of the Vector layer and drag in a little to narrow the text slightly
Layers / Convert to Raster Layer

Place your credit in the lower right in a small pixel font
I used a black gradient glow to make it stand out

If you are using this as a Timeline cover, you may save it and you're done!

For a signature tag you may want to resize it down before adding your credits

Choose a nice font for your name
I also added a black gradient glow to mine for effect

Now save as a PNG (better quality), and you're done!

Thank you for trying my tutorial!



© Tutorial written by Stina on 25th July 2012