Tutorial 2
A few tips though first.... when you save your
images, save them as a .jpg and in the save as box you will notice a option
button, click it. Set your compression to about 50 - 65 % and then when
you make up your stationery it won't be so big. Small is good! LOL
The keyboard shortcuts I include work in most programs... kind of
handy to know.
Tutorial 2
In this one you are going to work with the same image. I just
didn't want to overload anyone with basics. We will work with the color
picker, draw a straight line, do a cutout effect, drop shadow, text and
crop. Hope I don't over load you here but this is the final steps to
making a simple stationery. I am going to assume you all know how to use
the backgrounds to actually make your stationery... if you don't let me know.
OK either open up your image that you worked with or use the one I
have attached. It's the same image from the first tutorial, just with the
drop shadow added.
Now open up an new image... just so everyone is at the same place
let's use one 975 pixels by image height + 20, if you are using my image it
should be 975 by 301 using white as your color.
Go back to your little fella.. and copy him. [Keyboard shortcut
hint: ctrl-c]
Paste him on the left side of your background image [Keyboard
shortcut hint: ctrl-e].
Go to the tool bar and select the color picker, it looks like a
little eye dropper. Hold it over the image and move it.. if you look to
your color palette, you will see as you move the color changes in the box that
is alone. Decide what color you want to use for your border line. Click
on it.
Now go to the line tool.. on the tool bar it looks like a forward
slash. On the tool control.. Line Type is normal, width is 10... nothing
else is checked.
Holding the cursor fairly close to the image on the left.. but not
too close, don't worry, if you get it too close or too far you can undo it
[Keyboard short cut: ctrl-z]. Have it all the way to the top of the
background, now holding down the shift key.. this gives you a straight line
with no little pixel hops with our shaky hands. Draw a line from
top to bottom.
Select the magic wand and click on your line.....
You now have it with a marquee around it... now go to Image,
Effects, cutout, use the following settings:
Check fill interior with color
Interior color: foreground color
Shadow color: black
Opacity 65
Blur 8
Vertical 0
Horizontal 4
click OK.
You now have a 3D looking divider bar..
One more little thing to finish the bar.. leaving it selected... go
to drop shadow and use the following settings:
Color: black
Opacity 55
blur 8
vertical 0
horizontal 6
click ok.
Now if you take a close look at this bar you will see that at the
top and bottom the shadow doesn't quite reach.. select the crop tool.. and just
crop off the top and bottom pixels of the image.. make sure you don't take any
off of the width...
just enough to get rid of the area that doesn't have the shadow.
Ok now using the text tool... click under the little fella, select
a font, and type in Stationery by your name! Center it under the image,
and then right click to unselect it.
