Making Waves


Supplies:

Tube: AlessiaC-75-2
Scrap: scraphonored_ib-alessiac-75-2
Font: beach-club-2
Mask: 671 and 674 from Package 14
Remove Black Action

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


First off, unzip all supplies.

Open Photoshop.

Prepping the Masks

If it’s not already open, you need to open the Actions Panel. In the upper tool bar, go to Window > Actions. This will open the panel for your Actions. But if it is floating, you can fix that by dragging it to the side bars of Photoshop. Drag until you see a blue line. This will tell you that it will “dock” into that area.

As you can see, there are some default Actions there. You probably won’t ever need them, so you can highlight the folder icon for the group (Just like layers) and then hit the trashcan button at the bottom of the panel. If there is ever a chance you need them again, there is a way to get them back.

Now, to the action that you downloaded at the beginning of this tut. In the right upper side of the Actions panel, click on the horizontal lines and choose Load Actions. Navigate to the place you unzipped the file.

Now you will see the AoRK_Remove Black From Mask folder in your Actions panel. It should already be expanded, but if it isn’t, you can click the little arrow beside the folder icon to reveal the actual action.


Open a new 800 x 800 pixel canvas. Be sure it is set to 72ppi resolution.

You can always resize later.

Edit > Fill… this layer with white. You can change this to whatever color you like to match the website you will display it on, though.

Place the mask on the canvas that you would like to use.
You can either drag and drop it onto the canvas from your file browser, or you can use the File > Place… method.

Make sure your mask layer is highlighted in the layers panel.

Now go to the actions panel. Highlight the AoRK_Remove Black action and hit the play button at the bottom of the panel.

Your mask should now be isolated. Don’t worry about the dark areas you still see. You won’t see them in just a minute.

Place your paper on your canvas.Right click the paper layer in the layers panel and choose Create Clipping Mask.

Viola! Perfect masking.

Repeat this process with the other mask and paper.


Now, time for the elements! This is where the real magic begins.

You can drag and drop items straight from your file browser into the canvas. This makes it faster to place items.

Instead of telling you exactly where to put what and what size to use, I am just going to show you a animated image of what I did. This way, you can create your own version of the tag without doing exactly what I have done.

When placing your elements, you can transform them again by going to Edit > Free Transform. Just be sure you hold the shift key to constrain the proportions.

As you can see, it is pretty random.  I just place the items where I think they might work. I know it doesn’t really look like much now, but that will change in a few, I promise.

Now, back to the frame element layer. You have a frame, right? If not, you can skip this part.  We need to add a fill layer to the picture frame.

Highlight the layer UNDER the frame in your layers panel. I even went further, to underneath the wave, so that it looks like the wave is inside the frame. Now drop the paper you would like to use onto the canvas.

Grab your selection wand from the tools panel.  If you can’t find it, check out the basics page for a better understanding of the tools layout.

The Selection Wand options should look like this at the top of your window:

Click on the center portion of the frame.
In the upper menu of Photoshop, click on Selection > Modify > Expand…
Expand your selection by 2px.
Now highlight your paper layer. 

Go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection.

Now you have a fill to your frame. Easy Peasy!


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 (or ctrl+click) a layer and choose “Blending Options.”
I add a drop shadow and an outer glow.  The glow 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 element 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. 

If you would like to remove the excess shadows from around your tag, I have explained how to do that HERE. I do this with almost every tag I create. It just makes it look cleaner.

Resize before adding copyrights!


Highlight the top layer of the layers panel.

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. We want to add animation!

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. 

Higlight the paper layer that you put behind the frame.

Place one of the wave images that I have included in the materials list. Add the same shadow as your other element layers.

Duplicate this layer and Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Move it down one in the layers panel, so that it is under the original frame layer. Use your move tool to move it slightly up and to the left.

This is going to be a bit tricky, so pay close attention.

Highlight the top wave layer. Now place the referencePoint image that I included in the materials list.

Use your move tool to place it somwhere over your waves.

Now move the waves until two of the points rest on a dot of the referencePoints image. It is best if you zoom in for these parts

It will make sense soon.

Hide the top wave layer and highlight the bottom wave layer.

In the animation panel, duplicate the frame by clicking the plus [+] at the bottom of the panel.

In a counterclockwise motion, move the wave until the point is on the next dot of the refencePoints layer.

Duplicate the frame in the animtaion panel again, and move the wave layer to the next dot on the referencePoints layer. Continue doing this until you get back around to the dot before the original point.

You should have 16 frames.

Go back to the first frame in the animation panel.

Unhide your top wave layer. It should be showing in each of your frames. If not, you will need to go to each frame to show it. That takes a few minutes, but it’s worth it.

Go to the second frame of the animation and move your top wave layer in the same manner, except going in a clockwise motion. This one will be a little trickier, since you will just have to remember the spot you were on the frame before.

You can now click play at the bottom of the animation panel to check out your creation!

If you are happy with it, you can delete (or hide) the referencePoints layer.

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

Highlight all of your frames in the animation panel. Highlight the first frame and then hold shift. Click on the last frame. Now all frames are highlighted.

Click on the little arrow beside the time of the last frame. This will bring up a popup for more “delay” options.


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

In your animation dialog, use these settings:


flyinghearts My “Forever List” can find their tags in their Fotki Folders. flyinghearts