Enhance Your Magazine Ad with Creative Photoshop Techniques

Let's finish out our magazine ad. Now, to save you a little bit of work, I created a prepared file that you can use, which is basically what you did in the previous exercise, but I've added some type just to save you some time of having to type out some text and to style it the way we want it to be styled, and I'm going to open up this Photoshop file to get us started. Now, this was created in an earlier version of Photoshop, and as you create your Photoshop files and then later open them up in future versions, you might see this file alert as well, just to say that some text layers need to be updated before they can be edited.

So, I'm just going to hit update, and now my type layers are editable and I can make changes to them. All right, now looking down here, this is what I added to this particular file. This is a type layer here and another type layer over here, and I want to put in a background behind those.

So, I want to draw a rectangle that I can change the size of, and so I'm going to come over here to my rectangle tool, which is going to be a vector tool. We're going to use some of the vector drawing tools here. So, if you want to have perfectly crisp, clean lines, the vector drawing tools here are ones that we can use and we never have to worry about making them bigger or smaller and losing quality.

Unlike a pixel-based layer, if we create, let's say, a pixel-based layer instead of an ellipse, which is a vector ellipse, if we enlarge that circle, it could become pixelated over time. So, I want to use a rectangle tool, nice and crisp and clean will never become blurry, and that will create a vector layer. Now, make no mistake, this is not meant to replace Illustrator or something for true vector, like with a lot of vector editing features, but if you want just basic vectors here, you can draw them in Photoshop while you're here.

So, I'm going to go ahead and select the underlying layer because the new layer that I create will be created on top of this layer. So, if I have my type selected, it's going to be put on top of my text. I want this to be behind my text, so I'm going to choose my model and then use my rectangle, and it's important to know what this is going to output.

I don't just want the path, I want this to be a visible thing. I certainly don't want pixels. I want this to be a shape layer.

That should be the default, but I just want to make sure that that is what we have, and I want also this to be filled with black. So, I'm going to make sure that I choose black. If I have a different color, let's say down here, if that's already set to black, notice how that changes, right? So, that's kind of set to the foreground color.

So, when you first go in here, that's just set to the foreground. So, if you click your default colors down here, that sets that to black. Also, when I go in here to stroke here, I can look.

We've got the basic RGB colors, CMYK colors. We've got some grayscale colors. So, here we also have black through white.

So, I want a white stroke, a white outline, and a black fill. Just a thin little one pixel solid stroke. It doesn't need to be dashed or anything like that, and that's how this will look once I draw my rectangle.

I'm going to add some space around it, something like like so, and if I click off of that, we can actually see that thin little white stroke around it. I'm going to call this my text box. If I want to change this afterwards, I can come here and I can change the size of it as necessary, like so, and I also want to add a divider line.

For that, I also have a line tool that I can choose, and I can draw from here holding shift to make sure it snaps to a 45 or 90 degree angle, and do that as a nice little divider line there, and we have our kind of two sections there. All right, I like that. So, I'm going to call this my divider line.

I want to put this free text, this, not the vibe, actually the vibe, I'm going to put that vibe all the way at the top here, and I want this, this, and these, I want those to be grouped together. So, I'm going to click on one, hold shift, click on the bottom so that all those layers are selected, and I'm going to group those together. So, I'm going to do layer, group layers, and this is my event text, event text, like so.

All right, so zoom back out. That's what I want to do for that little area. Now, to add some more visual interest here, I want to create some other kind of digital elements to this.

I might want to put a splash of color down here to kind of help draw the eye down to the event details, the website, and so forth. So, I want to create kind of a diagonal line, kind of, this text here has some nice angles to it. It's kind of pointy, it's kind of thin, so I want to create some shapes of my own choosing, not some preset shape.

I want to draw my own, so that is going to require using my pen tool to do this. So, with the pen tool, I can draw my own custom shapes. Yes, I do have these kind of pre-made shapes here, but I can draw my own custom shapes using the pen tool.

Now, what is that pen going to create? A path that I could then use to make selections, masks, or things? No, I want a shape. So, I want to make sure that's set to the shape. So, just like we created shape layers over here that we can change, and we can set a fill, we can set a stroke, and so forth.

Those are shape layers, which are basically fill layers that are filling a vector mask, if you will. So, it's kind of like, almost like we have a vector mask. It's not technically not that way exactly, but those are shape layers.

I want to create another one of those shape layers, but with my pen tool. So, I'm going to select this model layer, so the new thing will be created on top of that, meaning below the event text, because I want this to be behind the event text. I'm going to use my pen to create a shape, and I'm going to choose a color that stands out here.

I can always change this in just a little bit, and I don't need a stroke on this, so I can go in and just set this to be no stroke here. So, we've got different strokes. We can do gradient strokes, solid strokes.

I want no stroke at all, so I'll get rid of that, and I'll come back, and I'll change the fill in just a second. So, I want to create kind of a, almost like a lightning bolt kind of look to this. So, I'm going to come down here.

I want a little extra space here, so I can go beyond the boundaries of my canvas as I'm drawing this, to kind of go off this page, if you will, and so I'm going to set my first kind of diagonal here by clicking, and then you do not drag with this tool, unless you want to create curves, which I do not want to create curves, so I'm just going to click, and then I come down here, and I click to make the next, and that connects that line. Then, as I click again, so notice it starts to fill from my first point to my last point. I just keep drawing, and I click to make another point.

It keeps filling. I click to make my next point, click to make my next point, and you do want to end up on the first point. When you hover over that, your cursor will get a little circle, which means completion, and then when you click on that, that completes the shape, and your shape is finished.

Now, this is an editable vector shape, so the pen tool creates the thing, but to edit that, I go to one of my vector selection tools. So, path selection selects the entire path. If I click on this path, which is a vector path that I made, I can move the entire path.

This arrow here, which we often call these the black and the white arrows, I know it's kind of more of a shade of gray, but technically the cursor itself is actually white, but the path tool here is the entire path, and the direct selection, which is this white arrow here, that is for individual points. I can click on one point and move just that one point. So, think of the path as the whole, and the direct selection as the part, but you do need to click on that part first, so I have to activate the path by clicking on it, click again to show the points, and then I can move those individual points to change the shape of this to get it to be exactly what I want.

Okay, now I do want to change the color of this, so I'm going to go up to my fill, and I want to go to a gradient, and I want to reuse the gradient that we had created previously. So, I'm going to choose my gradient here, and I can still have the same color gradient, so it can kind of match the same color that we had previously. Now, when I come back up here, I can still change things like, even though I'm using the same color, I can change the angle of this, so I can get to this kind of pink up here at the top, going down to the purple.

I could scale it to make it a little smaller if I want a quicker color transition from this color to the next. I'm going to see more of this at the end, and more of this at the other end. I can elongate it to make it be a slower transition as well, but I think maybe something like that.

Oops, type that in wrong. Maybe that 90 percent looks kind of nice. Also, if I do want to edit this for just this one use, I could maybe make one of these colors a little transparent, so maybe this, I want this to be maybe transparent as it goes down.

I could choose this transparency here, and lower the opacity as it goes down, so it kind of catches your eye up here, and then kind of fades out a little bit as it goes down. All right, so there we've got this kind of interesting shape that I have created. The final thing that I want to do here is to put some little dots kind of floating around her, as just a kind of a graphic element to just kind of add some depth here, and add some visual interest, and to draw all those little dots of varying different sizes.

I want to create a brush, so I'm going to create a new file here with a white background, so I can demonstrate how brushes work. I'm going to choose my brush tool with a black foreground color, so I can paint this, and I want you to understand the difference between these hard and soft presets. There's more to them than you might think at first.

For example, if you choose soft and then make it hard, you'd think you'd have the same thing as this preset, right? Conceptually, sounds similar, right? Let's try them though. Let's choose soft here, and I'm going to make a soft brush here, right? Now, it's a little bit big, so I'm going to go, let's say, smaller, like so. Nice and soft, looks good.

Now, let's choose the hard, also looks good. Both of them look nice and smooth, and look good. Now, let's do something different.

Let's choose soft, which looks like this, and then let's just change the hardness. Hmm, look at the difference in the edge quality. Look at how this is kind of a scalloped edge.

What's the difference? There's another setting that you're not seeing. That setting is in brush settings. In here, under brush tip shape, there's a spacing option that is not shown in here, and so we have to be very careful.

When we switch presets, notice how spacing is also changing. So, what's the deal with spacing? What is that? Let's start with a soft brush. I'm going to choose a soft brush preset, and when we think about a soft brush, it's really just this shape, and when we make multiple of those, we have to think about how far we have spaced those out.

If there's too much space, it looks like separate dots, and as we space them closer together, they end up forming what looks to be a solid line. However, if you hit the same spot multiple times over and over and over again, notice how it gets too dark. It's building up on top of each other, kind of multiplying the effect over and over and over again.

So, if our spacing is too loose, too far apart, it looks like dots. If that spacing is too tight, it does not look very good, and we don't get a nice soft edge. So, these presets of soft round chooses a nice amount of spacing, but that amount of spacing is too far apart for a hard brush.

So, if all we do is change the hardness, we still have that increased spacing. A hard brush needs tighter spacing so that it's a smoother line. I think what would be really nice is if Photoshop could take these basic presets, and when you change the hardness, that it could dynamically figure out the proper amount of spacing somehow, but they don't, and since they don't give you a spacing option here, unless you go into the full-fledged brush settings panel, what I would recommend is if you want a soft brush, choose the soft preset.

When you want a hard brush, choose the hard preset because that's also going to set the spacing behind the scenes. Now, when we talk about spacing, we can also use that to create some interesting effects. So, let's say I choose my hard brush and normally spacing is very smooth because it's very tight.

I can increase that spacing to actually space them apart and I get these equally spaced dots. Pretty cool. So, I'm going to go with something a little bit smaller because I want to create smaller dots like so, but I want some randomness to this to create some more artistic effects.

In these other sections down below, let's say scattering. I can check on scattering, but if I don't click on the word scattering, I don't see the options for it, so I need to make sure I click on it. Don't just check the checkbox.

Whichever thing is highlighted, regardless of what's checked on, whichever thing is highlighted, the options to the right are what is highlighted. Make sure you click on the name to highlight it to see the settings for it. Scatter is a randomness of position where it will randomly scatter to the sides of the line.

The further you go, the further away from the original line it goes. So, we can scatter it away from the line to create some more interest. Under shape dynamics, we can also have the size randomly change as well.

Jitter just means a randomness. So, if we jitter or randomly change the size, we can get smaller and bigger. The maximum size will be whatever your brush size is.

So, that's kind of your max size, but by adding in some jitter, some randomness, we can get something like this where we get something much more interesting and dynamic and fluid. And if I go back to scattering, maybe I want these things to even be a little bit further away. So, now I get this kind of very interesting randomness, which if I was creating that myself, that would be very tedious to create something like that.

So, if I do want to save this as a preset, I can create a preset. I can go here to the plus and create a new brush. So, this could be my scatter brush.

If I want to come back to a preset, I don't have to save a preset though if I don't want to. I could just set the settings and go ahead and use it. So, I'm done with this file.

I'm going to close that and now that I've got my brush, I can choose my white color and I do need a pixel-based layer to paint onto somewhere. I do want this to be behind the model, but right now the model, if I hide the background layer, the model is on a solid black background. So, to be able to paint behind her means I need to pull her off of her background.

So, I'm going to select her using, let's say, Select and Mask. We can use Select Subject. Probably will work pretty well.

So, I'm going to go into Select and Mask and I want to preview this on, let's say, let's do the overlay here and right now I have it set to default to cloud. So, I'm going to hit Select Subject. It'll try to find the subject, which I think this actually does a pretty good job of this.

I think that's quite good. I can preview on a white background to look for if there's any halos or preview on a black background, which doesn't really show the halos. So, I can look at the white background.

If I do think that maybe it needs to be a little softer or now I can see it's kind of harsh edges, maybe I smooth out the edges a little bit. Maybe I soften it with a feather because there's some kind of out of focus areas, maybe just a little bit. I can shift the edge in a little bit.

Now, keep in mind that this is going to be on a dark background. I'm not putting her into a white background, which would look very odd because the lighting wouldn't be appropriate for a light environment. I just want to put some white dots around her so it kind of looks like they're kind of floating around, kind of behind her and I want them to be cut off by her body.

So, I think this is close enough. It's good enough, I think, for what my needs are and I do want this to be a layer mask because I want it to hide the background. So, I'm going to hit OK.

Now, we still see that black background because of the background layer, right? And so now, if I paint something behind her, it'll look like it's actually behind her. So, I need to create a layer between the background and the model. So, I'm going to select this layer so that the new layer is created on top of it and I'm going to click the plus button to create a new layer.

This is just a normal pixel based layer. It is like a sheet of glass. It's transparent by default, but I can paint on it.

So, these are going to be my splatters that I'm going to create and I'm going to paint there with some white with my scatter brush and I think this is a little bit small. So, I'm going to go a little bit bigger with my square bracket keys and I can kind of, oops, that's maybe a little too big. So, let me undo.

Let me actually go back and actually, maybe even go a little smaller. Undo, go even smaller. That's looking a little better.

Okay, let me undo. So, I think I want some kind of along here, kind of like that. Maybe some out here.

If you don't like it, just undo and try it again. I'm just hitting control Z or control Z on Windows or command Z on the Mac. You can also go to undo because it is kind of randomness that you're getting here.

You just undo, try it again. Even if you take the same path, you will get some different random marks here. So, you can just try it out until you get something that you like.

Maybe I have something kind of go on like that. Something goes out behind her head here. Maybe I get some different ones going out there and it kind of wanders around here and also, let me undo.

I can go with a bigger brush if I want some of them to be a little bigger than other ones and maybe hit this one more time there. So, I kind of like that. It's kind of like little bubbles kind of going around.

Maybe a couple more over here. It's kind of looking interesting. Now, they might be a little bit bright and actually, if they were behind her, she might be maybe being casting a shadow on them a little bit.

So, maybe I can go in and hide some of them as they get a little closer to her body. So, I'm going to add a mask because I don't want to erase them because if I erase them, it's permanent. I can't undo if I don't like that.

So, I'm going to add a layer mask here and where I paint black, it will hide whatever this is. In this case, the splatters. So, I'm going to go in with a big soft brush.

So, I'm going to choose my soft brush. It's going to be nice and big. So, I'm going to go in and make this nice and large with black and then I'm just going to kind of hide it closer to the body.

So, it gives like a little bit of depth to that as it gets closer to her body. So, I think the harshness of that edge was just kind of bothering me and something like that. Now, let's say I paint it away too much and I'm like, oh no, I want to bring those back.

Well, then I could just paint with white to bring them back. If you want to do it more subtly, like you want to paint a little bit away, what you could do is paint with black with an opacity. So, this will hide a little bit.

You can hit it again and again and start to build up those layers until you get it to be just what you want it to be. So, you can hit one little area a little bit more. So, you can start to hide just little bits here and there.

So, kind of almost looks like they are behind her kind of floating around and creating an interesting vibe, so to speak. So, hopefully this has shown you kind of a different side of Photoshop here, creating more graphic effects, not so much photo retouching and color correction, but you can design in Photoshop, create your own things. There are a lot of features to do things like type effects, graphic effects from drawing things like we drew here, creating these brushes to create some interesting creative things.

So, hopefully this gets your mind in a more creative mode of doing things. So, try this out in exercise 6c.