Eshark Design

How often you work with Adobe application on your daily basis as a designer? especially those who use Photoshop a lot and have you ever sometimes found that photoshop shortcuts helps you save a lots of time editing.

Well, here are some tips I would like to share that might helps you..

Brush tips (click ‘B’ for brush tool)
- Make Brush size larger ….. ]
- Make Brush size bigger …. [
- Make brush soften ……….. Shift + [
- Make brush harder ………. Shift + ]

Color
- Switch foreground and background color …………….. Shift + X
- Make foreground and background to Black&White ….. D

Viewing
- Zoom tool …………………. Z
- Zoom out ………………….. hold Option
- Zooming In ……………….. Command + +
- Zooming Out ……………… Command + -
- Zoom to fit screen ………… Command + 0
- Hand tool …………………… press H
- Hide palettes + toolbar …… press Tab
- Hide palettes ………………. Shift + Tab
- Zoom to actual pixels……… F

Layers (click L for Layes)
- Add new Layer ……………… Shift + Command + N
- Copy to new Layer …………. Command + J
- Create clipping mask ………. hold ‘Option’ while click on between Layers
- Release clipping mask …….. hold ‘Option’ while click on between clipped Layers
- Checking which on layer….. select move tool (V) + hold ‘Command’ to your current working window

Adjustment dialogue windows (Curves, Levels, Saturation.. etc)
- Change ‘Cancel’ button to ‘Reset’….. hold Option
- Step back to history palette …………. Command + Option + Z

Selecting Tools
- V …… Move tool
- M …… Rectangular Marquee
- L …… Lasso
- W …… Magic wand
- C …… Crop
- I …… Eye dropper
- J …… Healing brush
- B …… Brush
- S …… Clone Stamp
- Y …… History brush
- E …… Eraser
- G …… Gradient & Paint bucket
- O …… Dodging
- P …… Pen
- T …… Type
- A …… Direct & Path selection
- U …… Custom shape
- Select multiple tools …… hold Shift while press tool shortcut

Quick Help
- Quick Help button …………. Command + /

Please note that this tips written for Mac users, just type Ctrl instead of Command and type Alt instead of Option for PC users.

Feel free to add more shortcuts if you have something useful that I’m not aware about in the comment box!

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Ho! Ho! Ho! It’s Christmas season again..This time I would like to share an interesting tutorial with you guys in conjunction to this Christmas season on how to create a simple Christmas Desktop Wallpaper.

The very first thing come out when I think about Christmas, would be Mr. Santa and the color Red, but this time I wouldn’t use any of Mr. Santa or Red color for my Christmas desktop wallpaper. How do you make your Christmas desktop wallpaper to be more simple yet attractive? Here’s how..

STEP 1 : First of all you need to create a new document in Illustrator by selecting 1064 x 768 for the size of your document and set the color mode to RGB. Select ‘Rectangular tool’ and create the background by covering all the background area and fill it with gradient colors for the background, on the Layers pallete (Press F7) name this first layer to be ‘Background’. As for this tutorial, I choosed a combination of Light Blue + Royal Blue for the background.

TIP : The size of your document is actually depends on your computer screen size since nowadays every computers and notebooks sale in the market are wide screen.

STEP 02 : Next.. in order to have your background to be more natural, create some small hills covered with a snow to be something like this by Using ‘Anchor Point’ (press P) on the Tool’s pallete.. Set the ‘Toggles Visibilty’ icon (something like an eye) on this layer to be off on the Layers pallete so that you can work on another drawing in a new layer without interfering any of those items.

STEP 03 : Next is for you to create a Christmas tree. This time I’ll share with you how to create a simple + quick christmas tree. First create a new layer (Layer 2) and name this layer ‘Tree’, then create 4 guidelines across each other to be like this Red guidelines. Then use the ‘Anchor Point’ (press P) to draw the outline on one side of the christmas tree.

STEP 04 : Later, just duplicate the outline of christmas tree and place it on the other side. First select the finish outline using ‘Selection Tool’ (press V) and copy (Apple+C / Ctrl+C) and place in front (Apple+F / Ctrl+F). Then, drag the new outline to the other side of the christmas tree and reflect it using ‘Reflect Tool’ (press O) while preesing shift button.

This Pathfinder effect will merge the two outlines to become one single shape.

STEP 05 : Select both outlines and go to Pathfinder (press Shift+F9) and select ‘Add to shape area’ icon while pressing ‘Alt’ button. Then fill the color you prefer for your christmas tree, recommended Green/Light Blue.

STEP 06 : Use ‘Rounded Rectangle Tool’ on the Tool’s pallete to create the tree’s wood. and fill it with brown color of your favourite.

Fill up more Christmas tree by simply duplicate them as many as you like.

STEP 07 : There you go, place the Christmas tree just nice on the hill side. To fill up more tree simply duplicate by selecting the tree using ‘Selection Tool’ (press V) and drag it to the area you want while pressing ‘Alt’ button.

STEP 08 : Later comes my favourite part.. Creating a Snow Man! First create one more new layer (Layer 3) on top of the (Layer Tree) by clicking the ‘Create a new layer’ icon on the Layers pallete and name this layer to ‘Snow Man’.

STEP 09 : Now, select ‘Ellipse tool’ (prees L ) on the tools pallete and start creating two round shape in two different size which is something like this. The small round shape on the upper part will be the ‘head’ of a snow man while the big round shape on the lower part will be the ‘body’. Later, continue creating the ‘eyes’ the ‘nose’ and the ‘mouth’ of the snow man. As for the mouth, use ‘Anchor Point ‘ (press P) and create one curve line.

STEP 10 : Create some more items for your snow man like a skarf and a tree branch then start filling up colors of your snow man. Choosing a right color combination is a key to get an attractive vector drawing. Here I choose gradient colors of Blue, Light Blue and White while Red for the skarf.

This how the snow man looks like..

and place it somewhere on the wallpaper.

STEP 11 : Finally, there’s one more thing you need to add on.. the snow! But before that, set all the Layers to be Lock by clicking the Lock icon on the Layer’s Pallete. Then only create a new layer (Layer 4) and name this layer ‘Snow’. This one will be a quick one.. using an ‘Ellipse tool’ (prees L ) on the Tool’s pallete, create a small round shape then fill it with White color. Duplicate this round shape by using ‘Selection Tool’ and drag it to fill the area while pressing ‘Alt’ button.

Tip : To get more attractive results, duplicate the snow into various different kind of sizes.

There you go.. your Christmas desktop wallpaper is ready.. Download this wallpaper, take it as a Christmas gift from me to all of you..

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2008 to all.

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Photoshop is one great + powerful platform software for editing pictures using by most designers + also photographers around the globe. Photoshop has one good function of effects on picture editing call ‘Filter’ and one of the easiest and fastest way of editing your picture is Artistic Filter, one of my favourite was ‘Watercolor’ effect. But, I find this filter technics has not giving me a perfect results and that’s why here I would like to share with you guys on How To Make Watercolor Effect on your picture with Advance technic.

STEP 1 - Choose any picture of you like, ( recommended, scenery pictures ). Here I use this photo taken on Manukan Island, situated near my place here at Sabah, Borneo Malaysia. Will takes you about 30 minutes boat ride from the Kota Kinabalu city jetty.

STEP 2 - Now copy the Layer name (Background) simply by dragging the layer towards the ‘create a new layer’ icon on the lower part of the Layer’s pallete and place it on top of the first layer. Then, delete the first layer (Background) and copy again the new layer (Background copy) and place it on top. Name this new layer to ‘Watercolor’

STEP 3 - Now, with the new layer selected (Watercolor), set the new layer to Luminosity mode and then go to Image>Adjustment>Desaturate. You’ll see nothing much is changing right, be patient my dear fellow apprentice.

STEP 4 - Now go to Filter>Stylize>Find Edges. Do not panic as this is really how your photo will look like.

STEP 5 - This time go to Edit>Fade Fine Edges. Please note that this action can only be done at one time, if you’ve mistakenly apply any kind of different action before applying this, you may not be able to do the Fade Fine Edges. However, don’t get yourself panic again, just go to History’s pallete and select to the previous action and then you can be able to do the command (Edit>Fade Fine Edges) one more time.

STEP 6 - Now the Fade window appear and change the mode from Normal to Color Dodge and set the Opacity percentage to around 25% - 45% depending on how best you like, for this tutorial I choosed 30%.

STEP 7 - Now you’ll see the different from original picture to this result. Now you need to make some extra adjustment where you can make color to be more outstanding. With the ‘Background copy’ layer selected, press (Mac: Apple+U / PC: Ctrl+U) and adjust the Saturation to be more color by draging the pointer to the right. Next, you need to select Level (Mac: Apple+L / PC: Ctrl+L) to make the photo more balance in terms of black and white tone. Adjust the pointer until you’ve satisfied with it. You can also set the layer Opacity or Fill on ‘Watercolor’ layer to be lesser at 85% or 75% if you still not satisfied about it.

Tips : for Levels, drag the left pointer towards the middle will get you a darker tone while the pointer on the right will get you a brighter tone.

Original Photo

Standard watercolor effect

Advanced watercolor effect

STEP 8 - Here are the comparison between standard Watercolor filter effect and my custom Watercolor filter effect. Take a closer look at the texture on the tree, the sea surface and the sand.. now that’s what I call good Watercolor effect. If you guys just curious.. to apply a standard filter for watercolor effect, just go to Filter>Artistic>Watercolor.

STEP 9 - Actually the Tuts not just stop here, If you find the result still not that so outstanding.. Let’s do some more advanced treatment. First, carefully observed and study the ‘LOGIC’ elements on your picture. For this photo, the sand just seems not so impressive, some part looks so white.. just select Eraser tool (Press E) on the Tool’s palette and simply erase the area where you want to make the picture looks more clearer, make sure the ‘Watercolor’ layer is selected. Set the Opacity + Flow to be 75%, 55% or even lesser 35%, depending on how best you like the result will be.

STEP 10 - There’s still one more.. this picture has a very blur sky.. what you need to do next is to act like a god, where you need to create a sky. Select Brush tool (Press B) on the Tool’s pallete and set the Fill color to light Blue sky while the Opacity + Flow is set to 55%. Select the correct size of your brush, for this tutorial I use 65 and start brusing gently on the sky. To choose brush size, while the cursor on the picture right click and the Brush option windoe will come out.

There you! one nice Water Color effect for your favourite photo. Practice a lot, play photoshop frequently and sure you’ll master this simple technic very fast. Send me your watercolor photo once you’ve done okay.. see you all!

Checkout my Flickr’s photostream for more sample of Advance Watercolor Effect.

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How many of you own a Digital camera with cybershot function? How many times of you took a picture with this cybershot which the result is very dark not good and you want to delete the file right away. Well.. dont just delete the file yet.. here I’ll share with you a very simple tutorial on How to Adjust Your Dark Photos to become more outstanding photo.

Take a look at this photo for instance.. I took this photo (well she’s the same model again from my previous tutorial) at the KLCC using SONY CyberShot T5 but the lighting is not like what I want, actually this happens sometimes when you’re lazy to set the correct setting on your CyberShot or you’re just lousy to do it.. BTW, on the second picture is better highlights + contrast.. No! I didn’t took the photo for a second time if that’s what you think.. the answer is Photoshop treatment! read on..

STEP 1 : Open the photo that you want to adjust File>Open. In this tutorial we start using a scenenary photos something like this..

STEP 2 : Go to Image>Adjustments>Shadow/Highlights. Adjust the ‘Amount’ of Shadows to be how many percent which you think the best, click the preview box several time or press ’space bar’ to see the effect. In this tutorial I increase the amount of shadows to 50% while amount of Highlights I leave it 0%.

Tips : the more percent the more dark shadows will reveal.

STEP 3 : Now you’ll see a brighter shadows and highlights on the photo. If you still not satisfied.. click the Show More Options box for more Highlights + Shadows adjustment.

Can you see the difference clearly?

STEP 4 : There you go..very simple right!! Checkout this two photos.. You see clearly so obvious the different after we done the adjustment of Shadows/Highlight where the sun reflection on water is become more brighter + the leaf stands out clearly.

STEP 5 : Hmmm.. actually you can make further adjustment by setting the Color/Hue/Saturation to make your photo more outstanding. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation or press (Mac: Apple+U / PC: ctrl+U). Now adjust only the Saturation to the right means to increasing, the rest just leave it 0.

STEP 6 : Now.. you see the different after a few treatment? amazing right!! still not satisfied? Okay.. go to Image>Levels or press (Mac: Apple+L / PC: ctrl+L). Now as you can see the little tiny white thing on your right is light tone and on the left is dark tone while the middle is neutral tone. Adjust the light + dark tone by dragging the tiny thing towards the middle.

Tips : The less light tone you drag on the White arrow towards the middle the brighter the photo will be, while..the more you drag on the Black arrow towards the middle the darker the photo will be.

STEP 7 : There you go..Waalaah! Practice this simple tutorial on as many as your dark + ugly photos that you took until you master this valuable technique. But remember, this technique can only be apply when you using Adobe Photoshop CS + newer, old version doesn’t have this simple function yet.. err but I think not many of you now using Photoshop 7, Hey! its Photoshop CS3 already man.

Log back in next Friday for another simple tutorial.. have a good day, enjoy + play alot!

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How to create a simple basic flower using Illustrator.

What kind of flower would you like to give to someone you love? Well for me definitely I’ll choose Rose.. errr! well it’s been a long time I’ve not gave a bucket of Roses to my wife anymore since our first met. Anyway, this time I’ll share with you a simple tutorial on how to create a simple flower within a second in Illustrator.. sounds interesting? read on!

STEP 1 : Firstly you have to choose a ‘Poligon Tool’ on the toolbar.

STEP 2 : Create one Poligon simply by dragging the cursor while pressing shift. Why press shift button? pressing shift is to make an object to be equal on every corner. Try creating a simple object like ‘Rectangle Tool’ without pressing shift button then you’ll get the idea.

STEP 3 : Now you have one nice Poligon..Okay! now comes the interesting part.. go to Effect>Distort & Transform>Pucker & Bloat and see the effect.. adjust the percentage you prefer until you satisfy with it.

Tips : The more percentage you set the long your flower will bee. Amazing right!

STEP 4 : For more advanced flower what you need to do is pretty simple, go to Object>Path>Add Anchor Points and see the different. Repeat the step if you want more effect on the flower or you can just leave it as the previous shape.

STEP 5 : Now at this point you have a basic shape of flower. But it seems weird where you still can see the Poligon line eventhough the object turn into a flower shape. Go to Object>Expand Appearance then only you’ll see the outline follow the shape of your flower.

STEP 6 : Next thing to do is to add one round shape using ‘Ellipse Tool’ (press L) to be put in the middle of the flower.

STEP 7 : Now, to put the round shape in the middle of the flower in a smart way is by using Align, go to Window>Align or press (Mac: Shift+F7 / PC: Shift+F7). Select the two objects (Round shape + Flower) by using ‘Selection Tool’ and choose ‘Horizontal Align Center’ + ‘Vertical Align Center’ on the Align toolbar. Make sure not to select the ‘Align To Artboard’ (well..actually its up to you if you want the object to be exactly in the middle of the artboard)

STEP 8 : Now lets play with colors.. select the object using ‘Selection Tool’ (press V) and once the object selected then pick any color you prefer from the Swatches toolbar. One thing you need to understand is Fill and Outline, where you need to Color the Fill area of your flower while the outline you can leave it empty (but actually it’s depends on your creativity though). Select more color option Windows>Swatches Libraries>

STEP 9 : Same goes to the round shape, fill the object with a different color. That’s it.. pretty simple right. Create more variety on the flower + play with the color and sizes then you’ll have a garden of nice and beautiful flowers on your computer.. Enjoy + Play with it and give yourself an applause!

Now I’m goin to buy a flower for my wife.. see you next week then.

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Hi there! This time, I’ll share with you another simple tutorial on how to create a sparkles in Photoshop.. Sound interesting? then read on!

STEP 1 : Firstly you need to open your selected photo on Photoshop which you’ll later need to add a sparkle effect on an object. For this tutorial I choose this picture taken from one nice sunday morning fair somewhere near my place call Gaya Street. While, the object that I want to add a sparkles effect is this iPod Shuffle.

STEP 2 : Next step you need to open Illustrator in order to create one basic shape of sparkle. Creating a basic shape of sparkle in Illustrator actually can be apply by only using a ‘Rectangular Tool’.. How is that? Preety simple! Create one polygon using ‘Polygon Tool’ on the toolbar. Here, I choose Polygon Tool instead of Rectangular is because, polygon is the nearest basic shape similar to sparkle.

STEP 3 : Next, select the Polygon using ‘Selection Tool’ (press V), then go to Effect>Distort & Transform>Pucker & Bloat. Then, set the effect to -200 until you see the polygon change into something like a star like this. Then go to Object>Expand Appearance.

STEP 4 : Now select the fill color to White and select empty for the outline (press x while background colour on top) or (press the small empty square below the Tools Pallete on far right on first row) . Then, simply copy the object (Mac: apple+C / PC: Ctrl+C) or go to Edit>Copy.

STEP 5 : At this point, go back to Photoshop and simply paste the sparkle into the photo (Mac: apple+V / PC: Ctrl+V) or go to Edit>Paste. Resize the sparkle to fit just nice with the object you want the effect to be, then press Enter. Press (Mac: apple+V / PC: Ctrl+V)

STEP 6 : Now, you’ll notice there’s 2 layers on the ‘Layers Pallete’. Name the new layer which contain the sparkle as ‘Sparkle’ (or what ever you prefer).

STEP 7 : Now the secret starts here.. on the ‘Sparkle’ layer, add a layer style by clicking on the ‘add a layer style’ icon at the bottom left of the ‘Layers Pallete’. Select ‘Outer Glow’ and you’ll see a Layer Style window pop-up. At this point I prefer to leave the Layer Style setting like this, but you can modify the setting by changing the Blend Mode, selecting a different color, and even increase the Opacity, while the rest you leave it as it is.

Tip : to make an outstanding sparkles effect, always choose lighter color for the layer style.

STEP 8 : Now you have one nice sparkle, Hmmm!.. but it still look not so outstanding. Well.. duplicate the sparkle three or four and place it somewhere around. To duplicate, select ‘Move Tool’ (press V) and drag the sparkle while pressing ‘option’ key for Apple / ‘alt’ key for PC and place it somewhere around the object and release.

Tip : Resize + Rotate the sparkles to get more variety and it will look more outstanding. Resize + Rotate : (Mac: Apple+T / PC: Ctrl:T) or Edit>Transform>Scale then press Enter.

There you go! Practice + play a lot with different kind of shining objects, create more sparkles.. practice makes perfect.. till we meet up next week!

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Basic Techniques Working with Pen Tool

Did you know that Adobe Illustrator was carefully made for designers base on from very basic drawing techniques. For example we take a look on Illustrator ‘Pen Tool’. You can draw many kinds of path using this ‘Pen Tool’,from drawing straight or curves line to create a path. Now, don’t get your head spinning around reading + trying to understand this already, it’s pretty simple as this..

Look familiar? I’m sure all of you have seen this before from a newspaper/magazine/books somewhere back in many years ago during your primary school. I don’t know what they call this game, but if you know how this game works then you should understand how to use ‘Pen Tool’ in Illustrator.

PRACTICE 1 - To Draw Straight Line :

1- Using the ‘Pen Tool’ to draw a straight line, press ‘P’ or click the ‘Pen Tool’ on the toolsbar.
2- Click once to create one anchor point and click again at different position to create another anchor point.
3- Now you’ll notice one straight line connected in between the two anchor point that you just created.

PRACTICE 2 - To Draw Curved Line :

1- Click once to create one anchor point
2- Click again at different position to create another anchor point, but this time click and don’t release, keep the mouse press.
3- Now drag the anchor point at any direction and you’ll see a curved line created.

PRACTICE 3 - To Draw A Path :

1- Click once to create your first anchor point
2- Followed by another anchor point
3- Try to make a simple square path (square is equals to 4 anchor points)
4- There you have it, one simple path shape as square. (Tip : Press Shift button while creating your path you’ll get a straight perfect line)
5- Now you can fill any color on it or create an outline.

PRACTICE 4 - Add & Delete Anchor Point Tool :

1- You can add anchor point tool on any path that you create using ‘Pen Tool’
2- Click the Add anchor point tool or press ‘plus / +’ while the ‘Pen Tool’ selected.
3- Simply click right on the line to add another anchor point. You can drag this new anchor point on any direction using ‘Direct Selection Tool’ by pressing ‘A’.
4- To delete, press ‘minus / -’ while the ‘Pen Tool’ selected and simply click right on the existing anchor point then you’ll see the anchor point deleted and the path automatically change.

PRACTICE 5 - Convert Anchor Point Tool :

1- Click the ‘Convert Anchor Point Tool’ or press (Mac: Shift+C / PC: Shift+C) while the ‘Pen Tool’ selected.
2- Click on any anchor point and don’t release, keep the mouse press.
3- Now drag the anchor point at any direction you want and you’ll see the straight line converted to curved line.

PRACTICE 6 - Creating A Path With Sraight Line :

1- Try to draw one simple star using ‘Pen Tool’
2- A Star should have a total of 12 anchor points
3- Give yourself a clap once you’ve manage to draw a twinkle twinkle little star.

PRACTICE 7 - Creating A Path With Curved Line :

1- Try to draw one simple round shape
2- Round shape should have at least 4 anchor points
3- Give yourslelf a clap again once you’ve completed the task.

PRACTICE 8 - …

1- There’s no more practice at this time..
2- Till I meet you guys on the next tutorial on Advanced Vector Drawing in Illustrator.. keep practice + play with it because you’ll need that for next week tutorial.

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How to create a Lens Blur effect on the background of you photo.

How many of you out there owned a digital SLR camera? Well this tutorial is made for you who don’t have which are really crazy to have one.. and I’m one of them., soon I’ll get my own CANON 400D, perhaps. One of the most common function in digital SLR cameras today comes with Lens Blur, where you focus on an object infront while the background become blurish. But did you know this technic you can also create when you dont even have a DSLR camera, the answer.. Photoshop! Here I’ll share with you on how to create Lens Blur in Photoshop.

STEP 1 : First thing is to find a perfect photo, if you got your own photo collection captured with any digital camera or cybershot, just use it. In this tutorial, I choose this photos of my lovely beauty beloved wife which was taken at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park near my place.

STEP 2 : Secondly you need to check if the photo is in ‘RGB’ mode. To do this go to (Image>Mode>RGB color) and then, go to your ‘Channels’ pallete (Window>Channels). Here you’ll see RGB channels which indicate the photo is set to RGB color mode. Now, create new channels by clicking the ‘Create new channels’ icon at the bottom of the Channels pallete. At this point, you’ll have a new channels call ‘Alpha 1′ with Black background color.

STEP 3 : Still on the Channels pallette, click the ‘eye’ icon on the RGB channels and you’ll see the entire photo change to reddish tone which indicate that’s a visual representation of the alpha channel.

STEP 4 : Now select a nice soft ‘Brush’ tool on the tools pallete (or press B) and set the fill color to White. While on the option toolbar at the top of your screen, set the Brush Size according to your desire (not to big and not to small) for this tutorial I choose 170, then set the opacity to 50%.

STEP 5 : Now gently paint the area you decide to focus. Means, I decided to focus on the middle part where the whole figure infront will be clearer while the background will become blurish. As you paint, you’ll see the middle part become clearer which means anything is red tone become blurry.

STEP 6 : At this point you should have you photo to be something like this.

STEP 7 : Lastly, comes the interesting part.. on the ‘Layers’ pallete, go to (Filters>Blur>Lens Blur) and ‘Lens Blur’ pallete will appear. Set the source to Alpha 1, then click Invert and adjust the Radius to get the blurry effect you desire. The more Radius you set the strong blurry effect you will get.

There you go! Checkout the photo in BEFORE + AFTER and see the Lens Blur effect, amazing isn’it!

Now go and snap more photos (it’s okay if you’re using only cybershot) and practice this simple tutorial using various types of photos till your friend wondering when was you bought a new DSLR camera..

He! He! Enjoy + Play, till next week then..

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How to make text become more interesting instead of just boring solid black, here’s one of the technique which I’ll share with you guys which I think very cool..

STEP 1 : Open a new document, (File>New) or press (Mac: Apple+N / PC: ctrl+N). Set the background to White, for this tutorial I name the document as ‘My Text’.

STEP 2 : You need to choose a correct character, normally I use thicker + bolder characters like Arial Black, Myriad Bold, Anja Elaine. I start the tutorial with Arial Black, very common character install on most every computer. Type the word you prefer using ‘Type Tool’ (press T). In this tutorial I choose a word ‘Sabah’.. it’s a name of a wonderful place in Borneo, well this is where I stay. Set the color to Black by selecting from the Characters pallete (Window>Character) or press (Mac: Apple+T / PC: ctrl+T)

STEP 3 : Now, you need to choose 5 different nice pictures to be crop on the text for each letter (depending on how many letters you have on the wording). Here I choose some beautiful pictures from my homeland, Sabah (actually there’s alot).

STEP 4 : Open the first picture and simply Drag the picture using ‘Move Tool’ (press V) on top of the text layer. Name this layer as ‘S’ means the first letter for SABAH and make sure this layer is on top of the first layer.

At this point your layers pallete should look like this.

STEP 5 : Set the picture Fill to 50% (depending how best you want) so that you can see both the picture & the wording. Scale the picture size to get a good composition with the wording, once you’ve satisfied then press ENTER. Move using ‘Move Tool’ (press V) while ‘Scale’ (Edit>Transform>Scale) or press (Mac: Apple+T / PC: ctrl+T).

Tips : While scaling the picture, dont scale up only scale down as you will damage the quality of the picture.

STEP 6 : Click the text layer while pressing (’Apple’ for Mac / ‘ctrl’ for PC) and then you’ll see a line around the wording. Now you need to select only the first letter, to do this, using Rectangular Marquee Tool (press M) deselect all 4 letters (A, B, A & H) except letter ‘S’, while deselect press (’option’ for Mac/’alt’ for PC) and you see a minus (-) symbol on the Rectangular Marquee Tool icon. Now you’ll see only ‘S’ is selected.

STEP 7 : Now, select Inverse (Select>Inverse) (Mac: Apple+shift+I / PC: ctrl+shift+I) and you’ll see the line around the wording is reversed. Then, on the ‘S’ Layer, press DELETE..and see the effect. At this point You’ll see the letter ‘S’ is merge together with the first picture.

STEP 8 : Follow Step 5 to 8 to complete all other 4 letters using a different pictures. Do it carefully take your time. Make sure to name all the layers with A, B, S & H for each picture. After all 5 pictures been crop with all letters, the Layers pallete should look like this.

STEP 9 : Now you see one nice wording with nice pictures on it.. but it still looks not so alive, seems flat! Okay here’s the secret!

On the ‘S’ layer, click the ‘Add a layer style’ at the bottom of the layer pallete then choose ‘Bevel and Emboss’. Set the Depth to 300% (depending how deep you want), Size is set to 5px not to much, while on Shading section, set the Highlight Mode to Normal and Shadow Mode leave it Multiply.

STEP 10 : Lastly, add another layer style by selecting ‘Outer Glow’, set the Blend Mode to Normal and change the color to Black. You can set also the Opacity to be how best you want, for this tutorial I set to 75%.

STEP 11 : Complete all layer style for all the remaining 4 letters. Of course I dont ask you to follow STEP 10 to 11 in order to complete all remaining 4 characters (imagine if you have more than 10 letters to go). Just drag the layer style from the first layer to the second layer..and so on, as simple as that.

Now you have a very nice decorative wording (well.. actually that depends on how creative you make the croping effect with the wordings). Enjoy yourself + Play!!.. till we meet up next Friday.

Now.. this is what I call pictures that talk by itself.

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How to Create Logo with Vector Graphic

Normally when you talk about creating a logo, I will start the idea with pencil + paper and then later only come the interesting part, Vector Graphic. I prefer to use Adobe Illustrator to create a simple but cool + nice logo. Here I’ll share with you a simple step by step tutorial on how I come up with Eshark Design logo using the powerfull vector graphic sofware.. Adobe Illustrator.

At first you need to draw/sketch your logo on paper, then roughly you’ll know how’s your logo looks like. If you dont know how to draw or not even have any talent to draw a simple sketch then you dont deserve to read this!

STEP 1 : Once you have finish sketch your idea on paper then roughly you will know what to do next in Illustrator, and this is what I’m about to share with you guys. Start with opening a new document and choose the correct color mode CMYK or RGB. In this case I choose RGB, document size would be A4 and units is set to Centimeters.

STEP 2 : Create one round shape using the ‘Ellipse Tool’ (Mac:Apple+L / PC:ctrl+L) on the tools bar and hold shift key until you have one perfect round shape like this.

STEP 3 : Fill the Fill area with any color you prefer by selecting from the Swatches or Color, in this case I choose dark blue for the fill color.

STEP 4 : Create another round shape simply by copy ( Mac:Apple+c / PC:ctrl+c ) and place in front of the previous round shape ( Mac:Apple+f / PC:ctrl+f ) or go to ( Edit>Copy>Place In Front ). Reduce the size about 30 percent using ‘Scale Tool’ ( Apple+s / PC:ctrl+s ). Then put the smaller round shape at the lower part of the big round shape and fill it with Light Blue color.

STEP 5 : At this point you have two round shape, select both shape using ‘Selection Tool’ then go to ( Object>Blend>Make ) or press ( Mac:apple+alt+b / PC:ctrl+alt+b ), now see the magic of Illustrator.. Waalah!!

STEP 6 : Now you have one round shape with nice gradient fill color, next step is to create another round shape by selecting the big round shape using ‘Direct Selection Tool’ then copy ( Mac:Apple+C /PC:ctrl+C ) then place in front ( Apple+F / PC:ctrl+F ) or go to ( Edit>Copy>Place In Front ). Then reduce the size about 90 percent using ‘Scale Tool’

STEP 7 : Again create another round shape (follow Step 6). Select only the 2nd round shape then resize it by holding alt/option key to be like this. Now, select both round shape and go to Pathfinder toolbar ( Window>Pathfinder ) and press ‘Subtract’ while holding alt/Option key and see the effect. At this point you have two new shape like this.

STEP 8 : Ungroup both shape ( Edit>Ungroup) or ( Mac:Apple+shift+G / PC:ctrl+shift+G ). Then select the upper shape using ‘Selection Tool’, fill the ‘Fill’ area with gradient colors ( Dark Blue, Blue & Light Blue ) go to ( Window>Gradient ) and the angle is set to 90. After that set the Transparency mode ( Window>Transparency ) from Normal to Screen mode.

STEP 9 : Now select the lower part, fill the ‘Fill’ area with the same gradient colors ( Dark Blue, Blue & Light Blue ) but this time the angle is set to -90. Then the Transparency mode is set to Lighten mode and the Opacity is reduce to about 15 percent.

STEP 10 : Waalah!! Now you see one nice round shape something like a web button. Next step is to create an Outline outside this round shape ( follow step 2 ) and fill only ‘Outline’ area with Dark Blue and make the stroke slightly thicker by setting the weight to 3 pt.

STEP 11 : Now, at this point you need to choose any letter/text to put in the middle of the round shape with lighter colour, type a word using ‘Type tool’. In this case I choose the letter ‘E’ from the word ‘ESHARK’ using my preferred font type and I choose White colour, then place it in the middle of the round shape.

STEP 12 : But first you have to convert the text into an outline ( Type>Create Outlines ) or press ( Mac:Apple+Shift+O / PC:ctrl+shift+O ), then select the text to ungroup ( Object>Ungroup ) or press ( Mac:Apple + Shit + G ), and drag only the letter ‘E’ towards the centre of the round shape and set the Transparency to Screen mode. In this case I enlarge the size of the letter ‘E’ and rotate it slightly to the right just to make it a little more nice. There you go!

Master this simple basic vector graphic, then you’ll crazy to make any logo using Adobe Illustrator.. just like me.

Enjoy + Play alot with it! Log back in next Friday for another tutorial.

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