Easy Way to Create a Lightsaber

Thursday, April 02 2009         34 Comments
Easy Way to Create a Lightsaber

This tutorial will teach you an easy way to recreate the look of a lightsaber. We will start off with a blank, black canvas and will use an image of a lightsaber handle: Next, use the Polygonal Lasso tool, or the Rectangular Marquee tool to make a selection that will be the blade, and fill it with White (in a new layer). You can round the edges with a Brush or Select > Modify > Smooth: Server Intellect offers Windows Hosting Dedicated Servers at affordable prices. I'm very pleased! Finally, open up the Layer Styles for the blade layer and add an Inner Glow and an Outer Glow. Choose your color...

Creating a Fireball in Space from Scratch

Thursday, April 02 2009         40 Comments
Creating a Fireball in Space from Scratch

In this tutorial, we will be showing you how to create a fireball-type planet from scratch. We start with a blank, black canvas and create a circle selection with the Elliptical Marquee selection tool. Create a new layer, and then fill with black. Make sure your color palette is Black and White (press D to reset color palettes), and then goto Filter > Difference Clouds. We will want to repeat this process until we get something we like the look of for our fireball. You can press Ctrl+F to repeat the last used filter. When you're happy with the difference clouds, press Ctrl+L or goto Image >...

Creating a Gold Ring from Scratch

Monday, March 30 2009         57 Comments
Creating a Gold Ring from Scratch

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a nice-looking gold ring using Layer Styles within PhotoShop. We'll being with a blank, black canvas. Choose the Elliptical Marquee selection tool and make a selection like so: Create a new layer and fill this with White, for clarity: Next, right-click the new layer and choose Udplicate Layer. Then Move it up 1px - that's it. Then repeat - duplicate this layer and move it up 1px, duplicate that layer and move it up 1px, etc. Do this around 15 times to get something like this: If you're ever in the market for some great Windows web hosting , try Server...

Realistic Wine Glass from Scratch

Monday, March 30 2009         28 Comments
Realistic Wine Glass from Scratch

In this tutorial, we will be looking at a relatively easy way to create a realistic wine glass with a liquid in, a reflection, and a projected shadow. Let's start with a blank canvas. Create a new layer and then make a selection with the Rectangular Marquee tool. We want it to be the width of the wine glass, but only one pixel high. You may find it easier to zoom in. Like so: Next, choose a gradient that will go Gray-White-Gray-White-Gray. We chose the Gray (#dedede) and set it at 15% and 85%. The other three markers are White, at 0%, 50% and 100%: Try Server Intellect for Windows Server Hosting...

Creating Bubbles from Scratch

Friday, March 27 2009         33 Comments
Creating Bubbles from Scratch

In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to create realistic bubbles in PhotoShop, from scratch. We will start off with a blank canvas, but choose a nice color, image or gradient to fill it with, like so: We used over 10 web hosting companies before we found Server Intellect . Their dedicated servers and add-ons were setup swiftly, in less than 24 hours. We were able to confirm our order over the phone. They respond to our inquiries within an hour. Server Intellect's customer support and assistance are the best we've ever experienced. Now we will create a selection of the shape of a bubble...

Creating a Book Effect

Thursday, March 26 2009         15 Comments
Creating a Book Effect

In this tutorial, you will learn how to recreate the look of an open book. This simple effect can be used for a nice-looking interface, or just to showcase a story in graphical form.. or whatever you choose. We start with a blank White canvas, and we make a selection for a page in the book, like so: Now we want to distort this to look more like a page out of a book, by curving the middle. Right-click the selection and choose Make Work Path.. Then choose the Pen tool, Add Anchor Point: Zoom in if you need to and then add an anchor point at the top left, like so: Yes, it is possible to find a good...

Colored Text Effect using Photos

Thursday, March 26 2009         9 Comments
Colored Text Effect using Photos

In this tutorial, we will be looking at how to use a text background to take on the color and texture of a photo. We will start with a blank canvas, colored black. And the first thing we want to do is to create our tiled text background. Choose the Type tool and then add your text. Make sure you pick a size and font you like. The color doesn't matter. Next, goto Edit > Transform > Rotate. Angle it a little, and make sure the text is covering the entire canvas, like so: Now paste in your image you want to use as the overlay, and resize it as needed. For this example, we are using the following...

Creating Fire Text Effects 2

Friday, March 20 2009         13 Comments
Creating Fire Text Effects 2

In this tutorial, you will learn one of many ways to create a fire text effect in PhotoShop. Although this tutorial is written with CS4, most versions are largely the same. The first thing to do is to create a new document in PhotoShop. For this example, we create a 400x300 black canvas. then We add our text to the canvas, in White: Now, goto Image > Rotate Image Rotation > 90° CW. Next, we need to Rasterize the text. But first, right-click the text layer and choose Duplicate Layer. Then hide that copied layer by clicking on the eye next to it: We used over 10 web hosting companies before...

Recreating a Paper Fold Effect with Shadows

Thursday, March 19 2009         12 Comments
Recreating a Paper Fold Effect with Shadows

In this tutorial, we will be looking at how to recreate the effect of a folded piece of paper using PhotoShop CS4. We start with a blank white canvas: Next, use the Rectangular Marquee selection tool to select a shape like this: Make sure you are on a different (blank) layer than the background (add a new layer if you need to), then choose the Pain Bucket tool and fill with your choice of color: If you're looking for a really good web host, try Server Intellect - we found the setup procedure and control panel, very easy to adapt to and their IT team is awesome! Next, goto Edit > Transform >...

Enhancing Eyes in a Photo

Wednesday, February 18 2009         12 Comments
Enhancing Eyes in a Photo

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use PhotoShop to really make eyes 'pop', like in the magazines. Spruce up your photos and make your eyes (or anyone else's) really stand out. Decide which photo you will be using - a good candidate is one with a nice resolution, and the eyes clearly visible. This method works best for lighter eye colors, but can be used for darker eyes also. Below is the image we will be working with. Server Intellect offers Windows Hosting Dedicated Servers at affordable prices. I'm very pleased! The first thing we will do is to zoom in one the eye we'll be working on. ...