Jimiyo Art & Apparel

Here’s a trick to create a dotted line to use for creating rivets around a shape.

Here is the final text effect, but this tutorial will only go as far as to show how the rivets were first placed as everything else is just layer styles and tweaking of rasterized style layers.

1. First create your text.
2. Select your text. TRICK> Hold Ctrl and click on the layer thumbnail
3. Expand your selection accordingly. I use 300 DPI so I expanded the selection about 35 pixels. It will all depend on what size dotted lines you use, DPI, etc.
4. Create a new layer.
5. In your paths palette, CREATE a new work path from the selection. To do so hold ALT and Click on the ‘Make work path from selection button.’ I used a tolerance of ‘1.0′, the lower the number, the higher the amount of anchors.

If you have done this correctly, you should have a new path in the paths palette.

6. Hold Alt and click on the new thumbnail of the path created. This will show the anchors.

7. Choose a hard edge round brush at a desired size. Open the brush palette, turn off all options, and click on the BRUSH TIP SHAPE. Under spacing, increase the spacing to desired.
8. In the paths palette, right click over the created path and STROKE PATH. Do not simulate brush pressure.

If you did everything correctly, you should get an image like the one show below.

This technique isnt perfect. The corners might need to be tweaked as the dots may overlap. To fix, I just deleted and replaced.

Now with the dots on a new layer, you can apply effects to the layer, most likely Bevel/Emboss with a drop shadow to get a better rivet effect. Viola!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Thanks for reading

;j

This trick works with all layer effects, but depending on how the effect is applied, layer effects will be grouped with the

original layer or placed below the original layer. Sometimes you will have to select the original layer (Hold CTRL and left click on the thumbnail in the layers palette), and inverse select and delete from the new layer with the effect. Then you can ungroup and it will not change the appearance.

I find CREATE LAYER is most useful for strokes. After creating a stroke, a stroke can be applied to the stroke, and repeat. The image below shows a series of the CREATE LAYER method, to add 3 strokes and a drop shadow.

You Reak… Uh.

Another application of CREATE LAYER.

I only wanted the drop shadow to appear in the banner. After splitting the drop shadow from the skull, I moved the layer down above the banner layer and grouped it. CTRL-G. Now it only shows in the banner.

This effect can be used for text, but it’s not limited to text. I’ve successfully used it in a background of a tee, and it gave it that extra detail I was looking for.

1. Using the path tool, create a straight line. Stroke the path with a round brush with pressure on a new layer. (See tutorial #1 if you don’t know how.)

2. Duplicate, duplicate, duplicate. Shortcut Press V to access the move tool. Select your stroked brush stroke. Hold ALT and move over the space you want. It will remain on the same layer, just making duplicates. You can alternatively NOT SELECT, and every time you move, it will put it on a new layer. This might be easier just in case you mess up and you want to nudge the stroked shape. You can merge down, and duplicate the merged too, which you know… quickens the whole process by a factor of ^2 each time.

3. Make your text. I am assuming you want to send an enemy a holiday message.

4. Take your text and make it lighter than the strokes. Group the complete set of strokes above the text. To do this press ALT-G. This makes the layer above the text show only in the layer below. WOW. How awesome, I use it all the time.

Dont’ steal my innovative color choices. I know its the sexiest color choices you have ever seen. I’m a pro.

Make sure you put a ugly layer style stroke on the outside of your text layer to accentuate the message.

Also, it is absolutely paramount, you listen to Queensryche while you do text effects. It will help to channel their creativity. Don’t be surprised if you crank out awesome work while listening to such great rock ballads as Silent Lucidity.

Violins!

Access the levels palette by Crtl-L or Image> Adjustments> Levels.

Levels are very important. I use them frequently. Levels can be used to adjust the the intensity of the ‘levels’ of color/grayscale meaning if you want the darks darker, lights lighter, or to adjust the midtone. Anytime you adjust the levels, you will however lose the range of color/grayscale you have in your image. You cannot add more levels, only subtract.

Here is an application of levels.

Say if I want to rip these bird’s shape from this image for use in a t-shirt design, or illustration, I bring up the levels palette. This is a simple example to look at as the birds are highly contrasted on a very light background.

In the levels palette, you will see a visual graph of the image’s range of color. On the very far left is the darkest part of the image. In this case, the spike at the left would represent the black parts of the birds. To the far right is the lightest part of the image which represents the clouds in the background.

If I drag the white cursor arrow (2) to the left, the parts of the image where it is lightest becomes lighter. The darkest parts remain the same, but if you were to move the black cursor arrow (1) to the right, the image where it is darkest, and the midtones, will become darker.

Compare the cursor arrows to the first image before they were manipulated.

After tweaking the arrows, and bringing them together, here is the result.

If you bring the black and white cursor together, the resulting image will have only black and white pixels, no midtones.

Got it?

How can you use this tool?

Here is an example of an illustration I created in which I used the same technique to add bats to the background.

Here I took the leveled image of bats and put it on the topmost layer of the image. But how bout the white part? Wouldn’t it cover the rest of the image if placed on top? Yes, but if you change the layer mode to Multiply or Darken, it will only show where it is only darker than the image below.

If you have any questions, email me at jimiyo@yahoo.com, or if you have an idea or question on other tutorials, Holla!

Cheers!

This trick works with gradients. You will have to play with the intensity of the gradient to get the effect you want.

I usually have the gradient glow on another layer underneath the main image. In my example I have the skull on top, and another copy of the skull with a dark gradient glow on an another layer. The layer has to be flattened on a white canvas otherwise the conversion will not work.

1. Convert your image to grayscale if needed.

2. Convert your grayscale image to bitmap

3. Set the resolution to your working DPI. I often design in 300 DPI. Choose halftone pattern.

4. Frequency 16, Angle 45 degrees, Shape round. You can play with these number to vary the saturation/size/spacing of the halftone dots.

Viola! Halftone pattern!

I usually copy the layer into memory, then undo the steps back to the document before it was converted. Since I only work in black and white, I usually change the layer to multiply thus only allowing the black to show allowing the layers underneath to show. There is a way to easily extract the black out of the white canvas but that’s another tutorial.

The halftone can be used for several applications. It has been popular for design elements the last year or two, but if you handle it well, it can be an interesting way to shade images as well. Easy to separate for t-shirt as well…

Cheers!

Here’s an easy way to create a nice curvy line in photoshop using paths.

1. Create a path

2. Right click while hovering over path to show menu

3. Choose Stroke Path

4. Use brush pressure to have varied line width

Viola!

The action will use the current brush, so you may want to change the brush before you stroke the path. Using different brush types will result in some interesting linework. I personally use this enough that I’ve made an action that automates the process. These curvy lines are great for shading, hair, flourishes, and has a myriad of other uses.

Shortcut tip:

P for path tool.
B for brush tool.

Here are some example of the usage of this technique.

As you can see, using the lines for shading allows me to create the illusion of highlights, shadows, and midtones.

Taking a straight or curved line, duplicating several times over, and warping the lines allows me to create clean and stylistic hatch shading. This is all done in Photoshop at a high DPI, then later converted into a vector image for use in t-shirts and other designs. I’m not a pro in illustrator, but I feel using PS for this kind of work is much faster and gives you much more freedom artistically than possible in illustrator.

Keep an eye out on how to convert your raster image into vector from Photoshop!

Thanks for reading!