Happy Independence Day!!
Wishing a very Happy Independence Day to all the Indian readers of The Photoshopper Blog. India’s Independence Day is celebrated on August 15 to commemorate its independence from British rule and its birth as a sovereign nation on that day in 1947. Jai hind!!
Republic Day
Wishing all the readers a very happy Republic Day. I hope you all enjoyed the parade. 
Here is a wallpaper celebrating the 60th year of independence…
1280×800:
1920×1200:
I know, I know that the colors in the “Jai Hind” are wrong. Actually I had saved the image as JPEG and closed Photoshop before I even looked at the wallpaper. (I mistakenly set the gradient to -90 instead of +90). Please avoid these kind of Photoshop mistakes when you work on your wallpapers/editing as these are very embarrassing.
Vista-like effect tutorial
First of all, I call it “vista-like effect”, and not “vista effect”. This is primarily because what I have made looks a little like the vista wallpapers. The official ones are very different. Here goes.
1.Open an image that has lots of dark and light areas.
2.Apply Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, with setting of 75px. (yes, a lot!) Then repeat blur a few times. You will get something like this:
3.Go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Color Balance.
4.Play around with settings to get something that is dark in the area you want the ribbons in. It takes some practice, as there are 9 settings to apply.
5.Using the “Elliptical Marquee tool”, make a really large ellipse such that only a portion of it is visible in the image. this will give you a nice soft curve.
6.Use a soft brush of any size you want, and color the inside of the curve you just made. make sure it is soft and even.
7.Press “Ctrl+D” to deselect, and “Ctrl+T” to free transform the curve.
8.Turn it a few degrees and place at a suitable location.
9.Set mode to “Overlay”.
10.Apply shadow settings as shown:
11.Now that you have made the first wave/swipe/ribbon, make more like these, but all of them on new layers, and all of them on “Overlay” mode.
12.I placed a Windows Vista logo, I got from the Microsoft website also. Here is the final image:
Ribbon zoom
This image is a bit dark, so you will see the complete design only in full-screen with medium to high brightness. Try it out!!
I dont think I have posted on how to make ribbons..so I will be doing that now. I have finally learned how to control and use the pen tool!! It is actually quite easy, just needs some practice.
To make an abstract ribbon (oh yes, 3D), we do the following:
1.In a new image, select the brush tool and change the width to 6px. Set hardness to 0%.
2.Fill the background with a dark colour.Create a new layer for the ribbon.
3.On the new layer: Select the pen tool (we wont be using the brush at all… you will see). Create a curvy path of any shape.
4.set your forground color to a bright color (for the ribbon).
5.Right-click on the path and select “stroke path”.
6.Apply settings shown:
7.Select OK, then right-click the path again and select “delete path”.
8. The ribbon is almost ready!! now to make it 3D.
9.go to “layer>layer style>blending options”
10.apply setting:
default drop shadow
outer glow with size 1px and same colour as the ribbon, just a lighter shade.
inner glow with size 0px and same colour as ribbon, but a darker shade.
default bevel and emboss
default satin
There you go, now you should a ribbon like this:
Hairy spider
finally, its TUTORIAL TIME!!!!!! now that i have some time on my hands.. my next exam is after 2 weeks… here’s an easy one that looks good.
How to make these:
1. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select a long rectangle then fill with white.
2.Rotate the canvas 90 degrees Apply Filter > Distort > Shear. play around with the settings. Rotate the canvas back 90 degrees.
3. Using an eraser with size=300px, hardness=0%, rub out the edges to make them smooth.
4. Duplicate the layer and position as required then select all layers but background, press Ctrl+E to merge layers.
5. Select layer > Layer style > Outer Glow and use settings
+spread=1px
+size=15px
+range=100:
6. Finally select Filter > Blur > Blur more. The results should look something like above.
7. I used a square wave distort in the second image.
