Supplies:
Tube: sarahrichter-package-17
Scrap: ScrapKBK_IB-Enamorte-36-3 : IB kits can be used with other artists.
Font: de-arloy
Mask: Mask-45, 36, and 38 from Package 1
Animation: rebeldezignsanimation-311
Please do not use any of the licensed supplies without purchasing them first.
First off, unzip all supplies.
Open the mask(s) you would like to use. You don’t have to use the ones I have chosen.
Select > All
Edit > Copy
This will save a “selection” of the white areas in the mask.
You can now close that mask.
Open a new 600 x 600 pixel canvas. Be sure it is set to 72ppi resolution. You can always resize later.
I usually add a color fill layer to the tag so it is easily changed should I use it on a different color website. Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color…
White usually works with most websites.
Place the paper 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. Just browse to the folder with the kit when prompted.
With the paper layer highlighted in the layers panel…
Select > Edit in Quick Mask Mode.
Edit > Paste
This will leave parts of the paper in red. This is good! If it doesn’t, then you will need to open and copy the mask again.
It seems that our mask was too big for the tag. Let’s fix that.
With the red “quick mask” still in effect, go to Edit > Free Transform
Fit the red mask inside your tag.
Select > Uncheck the Edit in Quick Mask Mode.
Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection
Magic, right?? now you don’t have to worry about having an extra clipped layer.
Instead, you have a mask thumbnail attached to your paper layer.
Place another paper on your canvas and repeat the process with any other masks you want to use.
That’s it! How easy is that?
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.
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:
Grab your rectangle tool and draw out a rectangle that fits in the frame. Move it to just below your top element in the layers panel. Make sure you have the options set to place the rectangle as a shape and not a path or pixel layer (top of the screen).
Open the Blending Options and give it this style:
Place your tube just above this layer.
Here comes the fun part. Recoloring! Not the tube, mind you, but rather the elements of the kit.
In the layers panel, double click on the thumbnail of your rectangle shape layer. This will bring up the color box. Hover the tube and choose a color from the tube.
Use your dropper tool to grab a color from the tube.
Now highlight that topmost element layer. You can see there is some pink in there.
If you placed your elements as smart objects, double click the thumbnail of the layer in the layers panel to open it up in a new file. If you placed them as raster layers, you can skip that part.
Grab your Color Replacement tool. You may need to right click a few tools to find it.
Look at the top and set the options like this:
Make sure your foreground color is set to a color from the tube.
Now click on the purple part of the element. Now the purple parts should turn red.
You can now close this element. Save. Yes, save. Don’t worry about it, though, because this does NOT save over the original element in the scrap kit. So you can edit to your heart’s desire.
Repeat this with all other elements and papers that have purple on them. Don’t worry, there are no green leaves in the elements we have chosen here. If you have chosen different elements, you will need to adjust the “tolerance” of the settings in your top bar options of the Color Replacement tool.
Grab your text tool and add a name or phrase to your tag. Add these styles.
Resize before adding copyrights!
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. But… ignore it! We don’t need it.
Highlight the layer that you want your animation to appear above.
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.
You will see that all 25 layers are open and unhidden in the layers panel.
In the menu choose Select > All Layers
Then Layer > Group 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. If you haven’t saved by this point, you should see an “Untitled-1” option. (but you definitely should have saved before now. Remember, always save often.)
After you have chosen your tag, hit ok. You can close the animation file without saving.
Back to your tag.
Highlight the group and change the blend mode to Linear Dodge at the top of the layers panel.
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.
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 that contain only the animation layers.
You will see that your tag only has one animation layer visible in each frame. You want this!
You can collapse the group again now, so you don’t mistakenly unhide layers in there. Click on the little arrow icon beside the group icon in the layers panel.
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 by clicking the little square box beside the layer thumbnail. An eye should appear…
Unfortunately, if you look in your animation panel, most of the time, that only unhides the background 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!
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:
