Tutorials - Valentine's Day Card
I thought I'd do something different for Valentine's day this year. If you're a girl, then you probably know that your guy isn't into ribbons and lace, so why not try graffiti!
I learned some of these tricks from Colin Smith's tute at Photoshop Cafe (thanks Colin!). The images and text are all my own.
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Open a new file. Create a new layer, and type your text. You can draw an image too if you like. In the Layer Menu, select 'Rasterize' 'Type'. |
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| Lock the transparency of this layer in the Layers palette.
Use a gradient to colour in your text. You can create your own, or use mine: aj-graffiti.grd Ctrl/Cmd click the layer in the Layers palette to select it. |
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| Create a new layer.
In the Edit menu, select 'Stroke'. Choose a width of 2, light grey colour, Outside location. Click OK. In the Filter menu, choose 'Blur', 'Gaussian Blur'. Blur at around 1.0 |
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In the Layer menu, select 'Merge Down' to join this layer with the colour layer below. Ctrl/Cmd click this new layer to select it, and Stroke it again; same settings but black this time.
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Duplicate the layer by dragging it to the new layer icon on the Layers palette. Drag this layer beneath your first layer. Lock the transparency of this new layer. With black as your background colour, use Ctrl/Cmd plus Backspace/Delete on your keyboard. The shape will fill with black. Move this layer down and a little to the left to create a nice shadow. |
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Now to create a brick wall background. Open a brick wall image. Select all, then under the Edit menu choose 'Define Pattern'. Create a new layer under your graffiti images. In the Edit menu choose 'Fill' and fill this layer with your new brick pattern. |
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Looks OK, but your graffiti doesn't really look like it's been painted on the bricks. Duplicate the brick pattern layer, and drag the second version above your graffiti layers. Set the blending to 'Hard Light' and the Opacity to around 30% |
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Almost done. Now your graffiti shows a little of the brick texture through and looks like it belongs. Let's finish it off with some stars. |
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Create a new layer. Draw a white line with a bit of a bulge in the middle. I did mine with 3 different width pens. Holding down the 'shift' key on your keyboard while you draw will keep your lines straight. |
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In the Filter menu, choose 'Blur', 'Motion Blur...' Set the angle to 90 and the distance to around 30 pixels. Click OK. In the Edit menu, choose 'Transform' 'Rotate' and rotate by about 45 degrees. |
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Duplicate this layer. In the Edit menu, choose 'Transform', 'Flip Horizontal' and move it so that it appears of the centre of the other line. Copy these layers to create more stars and position them over your image. You're done! |
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* To the best of my knowledge, 'bricks.gif' is in the public domain. If you know otherwise, please tell me.
