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Final Image

As we’ve now entered the Summer months I thought that it would be nice to take a look back at Spring, and design a poster celebrating the passing of spring into summer. As nature sees growth, many designers use this transition as inspiration for their own works.

This is the image that we will be creating in this tutorial. You can click on the image below to view the full-sized version:

Step 1

Open up a new document sized 1200 pixels wide and 800 high. Create a new layer and use a Radial Gradient Fill with these settings. For the left colour enter #d6de00 and for the right enter #ff6767.

Drag your mouse downwards from the centre of the picture so it goes off the canvas by a couple of centimetres. Let go and your picture should look like this.

Step 2

Now we will add some text in the middle of the picture. I’m using the font Broadway at 48pt but feel free to use a font of your own choice.

Now duplicate this text layer two times and put these layers behind your original text layer.

Move ‘Spring Copy 1’ to the left and upwards slightly and move ‘Spring Copy 2’ to the left and upwards of ‘Spring Copy 1’. Set the opacity of ‘Spring Copy 1’ to 60% and set the opacity of ‘Spring Copy 2’ to 20%.

The text should be looking like this.

Step 3

Now I will show you how to create a custom line around your text.

Click on the original text layer and then click on, ‘Create Work Path’. This will create a path around your text.

Press ‘D’ on your keyboard to reset your colours. Now create a new layer, name it ‘Line’, choose the Brush Tool, select the size 3px and 100% hardness and open up the Brush Settings. Use these settings.

Now with the Pen Tool selected, right click on the picture and choose ‘Stroke Path’.

Now you can delete the path around the text or create a Vector Mask with it in case you need it again.

After following this Step your lines around your text should be looking like this.

If you do not want to create a perfect line around the text you can select the Pen Tool and roughly go around the edges of the letters and the stroke the path. This will give a slightly different effect.

Step 4

It’s looking a little bare at the moment so it’s time to get some pictures!

Go to http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1173915 and download the image. Re-size the image so it’s just slightly bigger than the text.

Now we need to get rid of the white background which accompanies the leaf. You can use whatever selection method you prefer but I used the Magic Wand with a Tolerance setting of 80. Now move the leaf to the bottom left of the letter ‘S’ and rotate it round so the stem points inside the letter. I reduced the size of the leaf a bit more and then duplicated the layer and placed it on the top right of the letter ‘G’.

This is how my image looks like so far.

Step 5

Download this image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1174899 and place it onto your picture.

Now got to ‘Edit’, ‘Free Transform’ and enter 60 into the width and height box.

Now we need to remove the blue background with the flower. I used the Magic Wand again with a Tolerance of 80 and this did the job pretty well. It doesn’t matter if your selection isn’t amazing as in a few moments time we will be blurring the image.

With the blue background deleted duplicate the layer and then go to ‘Edit’, ‘Transform’ and click ‘Flip Vertical’. Move this new layer so the flower looks like a circle and put it in the middle of the picture.

Merge the two layers that contain each half of the flower and put this layer below everything apart from the layer where you applied the Gradient Fill.

Now go to ‘Filter’, ‘Blur’, ‘Radial Blur’ and apply these settings.

Reduce the layer’s opacity to 20%.

This is how your image should be looking so far.

Step 6

Download this image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1175425 and resize it so it fits the image.

Re-name the layer ‘Sky’ and move the layer in between the Gradient and the Flower layer.

Set this layer’s style to ‘Soft Light’ and reduce the opacity of the layer to 75%.

Step 7

Download this image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1161439 and name the layer ‘Seagulls’. Now go to ‘Select’ and click on ‘Colour Range’. With a Fuzziness setting of 100, click on the sky with the Eyedropper Tool that is automatically selected when you enter Colour Range.

Now click ‘OK’ and the sky will now be selected. Click ‘Delete’ and then deselect the selection. There might be a little bit of sky still showing around the edges so just get the Eraser and go around the image to get rid of any bits. Press Ctrl or the Apple Key and the letter ‘T’ and then enter 45 in the Height and Width boxes.

Now select the Burn Tool, then choose ‘Highlights’ and set the Exposure to 100%. Set the Brush to 400px and put the hardness down to 0%.

Click, hold and drag over the seagulls a couple of times and you will notice they will get slightly darker. Now move the seagulls so they are just above the letter ‘P’.

Step 8

Now we are going to add some grass on top of the text. Create a new layer just under the layer ‘Seagulls’, name it ‘Grass’, select the Brush Tool and right click (or Ctrl and click for some Mac users) on the picture to bring up this dialog box.

Click the small arrow and then click on ‘Faux Finish Brushes’ to load them up.

Now select this Brush.

Now go to the Brush Palette and use these settings.

Now we’re going to create a grassy effect on top of the text. Using different colours and different sizes you should be able to create a cool effect. I stared off using this colour, #208202 and the size 20px for the Brush. This is how a part of my image looks like after doing this step.

Step 9

Create a new layer under ‘Grass’ and name it ‘Soil’. We will use the same Brush but this time in the Brush Settings put the ‘Angle Jitter’ up to a 100%.

Using the colour #432507 and a Brush size of 15px move your cursor under the areas of grass to create a soil effect. This is my how my image looks so far.

Step 10

Download this image, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1164574 and then enter Ctrl or the Apple Key and ‘T’ and enter 15 in the Height and Width boxes. Now go to ‘Edit’, ‘Transform’ and click ‘Rotate 90° Clockwise’. Position the layer so it is just under the letter ‘P’. It looks a bit odd sat there at the moment so now go to the Layer Styles and choose ‘Multiply’.

After following this Step you image should be looking a little something like this.

Now we will download a couple more images and repeat the same techniques we just
applied.

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1164823

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1165413

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1158752

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1161898

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1156590

Again re-size these images, set the Layer Styles to ‘Multiply’ and place the images around the letters.

This is how my image looks like so far.

Step 11

Download these images.

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1175485

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1157696

With the first picture re-size it to a suitable size and select the Magic Wand. Using a Tolerance of 80, click on the sky and press ‘Delete’. Now make the image even smaller and put it onto the letter ‘R’. I then duplicated this layer and then flipped it horizontally by going to ‘Edit’, ‘Transform’, ‘Flip Horizontal’. Now re-size the daisy so it’s slightly smaller than the previous one next to it.

With the second image of a daisy you downloaded, re-size it so you can see it clearly and again use the Magic Wand with a Tolerance of 80 on the sky. Re-size the image down again but make it a big bigger than the other two daisies. Erase about half off the bottom of the stem and then place this daisy on top of the letter ‘G’.

Step 12

Create a new layer and name it ‘Line 1’. Select the Brush Tool and choose a 2px, soft edged Brush. Now open up the Brush Settings and use these settings.

Go to the Colour Palette and enter in #d70808 for the foreground colour. Now choose the Pen Tool (make sure that Paths are selected) and draw a curvy line on top of the text.

After you’ve done the Path Right click/Ctrl click and select ‘Stroke Path’. Make sure that Brush is selected and ‘Simulate Pressure’.

Delete the path and now erase parts of this layer so the line looks like it is weaving in and out of the lettering.

Now create a few more lines, each on a different layer consisting of different colours weaving in and out of the text.

After you’ve done that we’re now going to add a small glow to the lines. Right click on the ‘Line 1’ layer and select ‘Blending Options’. Tick the ‘Outer Glow’ and ‘Bevel and Emboss’ boxes. You don’t have to change the settings for the Bevel and Emboss setting but on the Outer Glow setting change the colour of the glow to a similar colour of the line. For this layer my line is red so I’ve used a red glow.

Add the ‘Outer Glow’ and ‘Bevel and Emboss’ styles to each of the line layers and change the glow colour so it’s similar to the line’s colour.

Step 13

Create a new layer on top of everything else and name it ‘Border’. Fill this layer with any colour you want and then set the ‘Fill’ down to 0%.

Right click on this layer; click ‘Blending Options’ and use these settings under ‘Stroke’.

Step 14

Download this texture http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1175647, put it on top of all your layers and re – name it ‘Texture 1’. Now re-size this layer so it fits over your image.

Now go to the opacity for this layer and set it to 8%.

Now download this texture http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1176171 and again, re-size it so it fits on top of your image. Put the opacity for this layer down to 3% and we’re done!

Here’s the final image that we’ve created. Click on the image to view the full-sized version:

I hope you’ve enjoyed the tutorial.

Download Source File for this Tutorial

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