Blood Shot

Supplies:

Tube: Enamorte 21-1
Scrap: Dark Beginnings by CCD Scraps
Animation: Animation from package 572
Masks: HERE (I am using number 251 from package 6)
Font: Angelonia
Misc Supplies: HERE

Please do not use any of the licensed supplies without purchasing them first.


First off, unzip all supplies. 

NOTE:  Because of the difference in DPI of images, you may need to do a lot of element resizing.

Open the Template in the supplies zip that I provided.

Resize it to your desired size.  Since I left it in vector format, you can make it any size you like without losing quality.  I usually make my tags at 800 pixels on the longest side.

Delete the watermark layer.

You can resize the template layers by Select > All Layers and then Edit > Free Transform. 
Now up at the top of the screen, you will see this:

Make sure you have the “Link” activated, so that both Width and Height work together.

I resized my layers to 90%.

Open (separately) the mask you would like to use.  You don’t have to use the one I have chosen.

Select > All
Edit > Copy
Select > Edit in Quick Mask Mode
Edit > Paste
Select > Edit in Quick Mask Mode (uncheck)
Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection
Layer > Layer Mask > Apply
Layer > Matting > Remove Black Matte
Right click the layer thumbnail in the layers panel
Select Pixels
Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection
Layer > Layer Mask > Apply
Save this as a .psd on your desktop (or wherever you want)

Back on the template.

Highlight the “Background” layer of the template.

File > Place and navigate to the mask that you just saved.

Remember, you can drag and drop items straight from your file browser into the canvas.

Next, choose the paper you would like to use on your mask.

Drag the paper onto the canvas above the mask.

In your layers panel, right click on the paper layer and choose Create Clipping Mask.

 We want to also add papers to the template layers.  Gotta make em all purdy and stuff.

Simply drag the papers to each of the template layers and create a clipping mask for each paper. Take note that you will need to have a black, gray, or white paper layer for the heart of the template.  This is because we want to keep the adjustments from affecting the animation later.

Like this:

We aren’t done with the template, though.

Highlight layer “1.”

Right click the layer in the layers palette and choose “Blending options.”

Add these styles to the layer:

 Repeat this style for layers “4” and “5.”

Highlight layer “2” and go to the blending options.  Add these styles to the layer.

Repeat this style for layer “8.”

Your template should look something like this:

Now, time for the elements!

Highlight the PAPER layer that is clipped to your mask layer.

Place the scatter element as you see fit.

To rotate and resize the layers, go to Edit > Free Transform.  Pay attention to the cursor shape.  A curved arrow is to rotate.  Double sided arrows resize the corresponding width/height.  A single pointed arrow will move the layer.

Highlight the PAPER layer that is clipped to layer “3.”

Begin adding some elements as you see fit.

Highlight the PAPER layer that is clipped to layer “4.”

Add some elements as you see fit.

Highlight the PAPER layer that is clipped to layer “8.”

Place more elements as you see fit.

These are the positions of elements I used:

As you can see, it is pretty random.  I just place the items where I think they might work.

We definitely want to add some shadows to our elements.  Without shadowing, the tag will just look flat. The secret to a good tag, is a good shadow effect.

Right click a layer (topmost works fine) and choose “Blending Options.”
I add a drop shadow and an outer glow.  It enhances the effect a bit.

Now after you have hit OK, right click the layer again and choose “Copy Layer Style.”
Highlight all of your layers (click the top one, then shift + click the bottom one) and right click again.  This time, choose “Paste Layer Style.”

It makes a HUGE difference to add shadows:

Now that we have all of that done, time to add the next details.  Tube and text.  Fun!

Choose where you want your main tube to be placed. 

Now drag and drop your tube onto the canvas. Resize and adjust it to your liking. Always make sure you constrain your proportions while resizing.  Hold the Shift key while you drag the corners.

Add the same drop shadow you did before.  Don’t forget your copyright text!

Uh oh… My tube doesn’t match the tag… It doesn’t look very good.  But I REALLY want to use this tube!  There is a remedy!

We are going to recolor the tag to match the tube.

Highlight the top layer of the layers panel.

Up in the top menu:  Select > Color Range

This will open a dialog box like this:

While you have the dialog open, hover over your tag.  You will see that your cursor turns into a dropper tool.  Click on the tag where the purple is.  (or whatever color you are wanting to change, in case you are using a different kit and tube)

You can use the slider bar to increase the “fuzziness” in order to cover more area.  If that doesn’t quite get all of the areas, you can click on the dropped box with the plus sign beside it. 

Then go back to your tag and click on the color you want to include.

The black and white “masked” area in the dialog should look similar in comparison to this:

You can see that it grabbed all of the areas that are covered in purple.

Click the OK button and you will see that it selected the areas of your tag that are purple.

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue and Saturation.

This will remove your selection.  That is ok!  

Over in the layers palette, you will see the adjustment layer has been added. 

Right click the layer and choose “Edit Adjustment.

Move the sliders until you get a color that matches your tube.

This is what I used.

Your tag should now be recolored!


NOTE! Do not choose any of the colors from your tube as you don’t want to change those. Most tube companies do not allow the changing of colors on the artwork. If you can’t seems to NOT select the colors in the tube, you will need to erase those parts from the layer mask on the Adjustment layer.

In the layers palette, highlight the mask that is on the adjustment layer. Use your eraser tool to remove any parts that cover the tube.


Name time!

Grab your text tool and add the name you would like.  Position it just where you want it and add a layer style.  This is mine:

That leave us with the non-animated version of the tag!  If you wold like to keep the JPG version, you can save here.  Simply File > Save As…  and choose the jpg option from the drop down box at the bottom of the dialog.

 Here’s where it starts getting complicated.

Make sure your Animation Panel is open.  Window > Timeline (or Animation, if you are on earlier versios)

You will need to click the “Create Frame Animation” button. If you do not see this button, please refer to THIS page for more information about the timeline.

You will see that your first frame is already there.  But… ignore it!  We don’t need it.

File > Open… choose an animation that you’d like to use.  I am going to show you how to use the 25 frame animations that I have at CDO.  To conserve space, we will be cutting the animation time in half. 

You will see that all 25 layers are open and unhidden in the layers panel.
Highlight all of the odd numbered layers.  Hold the ctrl/cmd key and click each one.
In the menu choose Layer > Group Layers

If you would like to use the entire animation, just highlight all of the layers and group them.

(I am going to use all of the layers)

Now right click on your group in the layers panel and duplicate.  BUT DON’T HIT OK, YET!

In the duplicate dialog, choose your tag from the dropdown box.  It should be the title of the template.

After you have chosen your tag, hit ok.  You can close the animation file without saving.

Back to your tag.

You can resize and rotate the group using the Edit > Free Transform option.  Be sure you are resizing the whole group, not just one layer.  Don’t forget to hit the check mark at the top of the window to apply the transformation. 

Fit it into the heart of the tag.  Don’t worry that parts are hanging off, we will fix that.

Hold the CMD button (ctrl on windows) and click on the thumbnail of layer “7.”  This will make a selection of the heart layer.  

Make sure you have your animation group highlighted.  

In the top menu:  Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection.

This will confine the animation to the inner portion of the heart.

You can add a drop shadow to this entire group by right clicking and choosing “Blending Options.”

When you add the shadows, be sure to check these options to keep the shadow inside the heart.

Now on to animating!

On the right side of your animation panel, click the 4 horizontal lines.  Choose the option that says “Make Frames from Layers.”

Now, this made a mess of things, didn’t it?? LOL!  But no, not really.  You will see that it created a frame for every layer in your tag.  And that’s ok!

Click on the first frame in the animation panel.  At the bottom of the window, there is a trashcan icon.  That deletes the frame.  Delete all of the frames that aren’t part of the animation.  You should be left with 25 frames.

You will see that your tag only has one animation layer visible.  You want this!

You can collapse the group again now, so you don’t mistakenly unhide layers in there. (click the arrow to the left of the folder icon in the layers palette)

In the animations panel, click on the first frame.  You MUST BE ON THE FIRST FRAME to do any kind of editing from here on out.  ALWAYS make sure you are on the first frame.  ALWAYS!  I can’t stress that enough.

Are you on the first frame of the animation yet?  Good.  Now we can continue.

In the Layers panel, unhide the background layer.

Unfortunately, most of the time, that only unhides the last layer for the first animation frame.  Just hide it again, and then unhide once more.  Photoshop has a strange sense of background layers.  It doesn’t play nice.  Thankfully, the bottom-most layer is the only one you have to click 3 times.  (I sure hope you got all of that.  It is hard to explain…)

Now, one by one, unhide all of the layers to your tag.  DON’T touch the animation layers, though!  Those are already spaced out the way they should be.  Leave those alone.

After you have unhidden all of your tag layers, you can click play at the bottom of the animation panel to check out your creation!

There is a chance that your blood animation may be colored strange.  No need to worry!

On layer “7,”  CMD+Click (ctrl+click on windows) on the layer thumbnail to select the heart area.

Go back to your Hue and Saturation adjustment layer.  Highlight the mask that is attached to the layer in the layers palette.  Hit delete on your keyboard.  This will remove any part of the adjustment layer that is inside the heart.

Oh, right!  Don’t forget to set your frame delay.

Now you will need to save your animation as a gif file.

In your animation dialog, use these settings:

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial!