Reflected Phones

Table of Contents

• Rule #1 – Make sure you have the correct image reflected.
• Rule #2 – Angled sides get their own reflections.
• Rule #3 – Separate items get their own reflections.
• Rule #4 – Items pointing toward you have smaller reflections than you think.
• Rule #5 – Cars don’t float. And they have underneathy-bits.
• Rule #6 – Round and cylindrical objects need special handling.
• Bonus Guide: Make It Look More Like a Wet Table Than a Mirror
• More Reflection Catastrophes

Rule #1 – Make sure you have the correct image reflected.

Photoshop Reflection Bloopers
The following images were created without a strict eye for detail.

Upon reflection, it's only 4GB.

Mary J. Blige, Macy Gray: who's gonna notice?

You just spun it around, didn't you?

Reflection Reality
In this photo we can see how a reflection appears when we look at a flat object face-on:

Flat-surfaced item, face on.

Notice the yellow lines I drew on the right-hand copy. The R is both upside down and backward. There is an element of perspective here too.

Reflection Realism in Photoshop
Here’s how to get a much more realistic reflection for a simple, flat item that is not turned at an angle:

1. Start with a layer that has just your image, separate from the background.
2. Press Ctrl+J (Mac: Cmd+J) to duplicate the layer.

Duplicate the layer

3. Press Ctrl+T (Mac: Cmd+T) to enter the Transform command.

Transform command

4. Click and drag down on the top-center square (handle) of the Transform box. Drag it all the way past the bottom edge of your object, so that it is flipped and not quite as tall as the original object.

Drag the top handle down

5. Press Enter/Return to complete the transformation.
6. Click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Add Layer Mask icon

7. Select the Gradient tool from the Tools panel.

Gradient tool

8. Up in the Control panel, click on the Click to open Gradient picker icon.
9. Select the Black,White gradient (3rd from the left on the top row).

Gradient Picker

10. Select the Linear Gradient in the Control panel.

Linear Gradient

11. Make sure that the layer mask is still selected in the Layers panel. It should have a broken rectangle framing it.

Layer mask selected

12. Click and drag a gradient from the center of the reflection up to where the two box images meet. Hold the Shift key down to keep the gradient straight. Don’t let go of the Shift key until you let go of the mouse button.

Drag a gradient up

Gradient on layer mask

White background

Extra Credit
To make this image more realistic, add perspective.

1. Select the top (reflection) layer and press Ctrl+E (Cmd+E) to merge it down to the original image layer.
2. Edit > Transform > Perspective.
3. Click and drag the bottom-left handle to the right a bit.

Drag the bottom-left handle to the right

4. Press Enter/Return to save the transformation.

Finally, I added a thin black shadow line with the Line tool. I also put a chic white-to-gray gradient on the background layer.

Reflection in perspective

Next: Rule #2 – Angled sides get their own reflections.

Orange Cream Text

Create the Basic Text

1. Create a new RGB document which is 1000 pixels by 500 pixels and 72 pixels/inch (white background).
2. Select the Horizontal Type Tool in the Tools panel

Horizontal Type Tool

3. Up in the Control panel, set these text styles:
   1. Select a font which is straight up and down, and has thick strokes and a pointy serifs (serifs are those little bits that jut out from the tops and bottoms of letter strokes.) I chose Lady Copra Narrow.
   2. Change the font size in the Control panel to something large like 200pt. Just delete the current size with and type in “200″.
   3. Click on the Center text icon.
   4. Click on the Set the Text Color color swatch to open the Color Picker.

Type Control panel

4. Select a bright orange color. I chose R: 255, G: 165, B: 0. Click OK to save the text color.

Bright orange text color

5. Click in the center of the upper half of the image window with the Type tool.
6. Type the words “Orange Cream”. Make sure to use capital letters at the beginning of each word, and lower case for the rest.

Orange Cream text

7. Click the Commit any current edits check mark icon in the Control panel.

Commit any current edits

8. Open the Character panel (Windows > Character).
9. Click on the Small Caps icon. This makes all your letters upper case but keeps the first letter of each word a little larger.

Small Caps

Add Some Dimension

1. Ctrl+J (Mac: Cmd+J) to duplicate the text layer.
2. With the Type tool still active, change the text color for this duplicated layer to white (use the color swatch in the Control panel again; R: 255, G: 255, B: 255).

Change duplicated text color to white

3. Press V to select the Move tool.
4. Use your arrow keys to move the white text down and to the right slightly. I pressed the down arrow twice and the right arrow twice.

Move white text down and to the right

5. View the Layers panel (Window > Layers if it is not visible).
6. Click on the top-most “Orange Cream” layer and drag it underneath the second “Orange Cream” layer. Your white text will seem to disappear in the image window.

Move top Orange Cream copy layer down

7. With the now-bottom “Orange Cream” layer still selected, press Ctrl+J (Mac: Cmd+J) again.
8. Select the Type tool and change the text color for this duplicated layer to a brownish-orange (from the Control panel again). I chose R: 180, G: 11, B: 20.

Change text to brownish-orange

9. Again press V to select the Move tool, and use the arrow keys to move this brownish text down and to the right. I pressed the down arrow twice and the right arrow twice.
10. In the Layers panel, drag this layer below the other two “Orange Cream” layers.

Move the brownish text over

Next: Add Some Yellow Zest

Color Mixture

The Mixing Technique

1. Create a new Photoshop document.
2. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select the left half of the image window.

Select the left half

3. Pick a foreground color. I chose pure red (R:255, G:0, B:0).
4. Pick a background color. I chose pure blue (R:0, G:0, B:255).

Red and blue

5. Press Alt+Backspace (Mac: Opt+Backspace) to fill the selection with your foreground color.

Left half filled with red

6. Select > Inverse to invert the selection.
7. Press Ctrl+Backspace (Mac: Cmd+Backspace) to fill the selection with your background color.

Right half filled with blue

8. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make a selection through the middle somewhere so that it includes both colors. Mine is covering approximately the center one-third.

Rectangular selection in the center

9. Filter > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius all the way up to 250.0 pixels and click OK.

Gaussian Blur

9. Press Ctrl+D (Mac: Cmd+D) to deselect. What you will have in the middle is a nice blend mixing the two colors.

In my case, right in the middle is a rich purple (R: 129, G: 0, B: 126). This is close to the result we would get with paint.

Mixture of pure red and pure blue

Rich purple

Note: A similar blending effect can be made using a Foreground-to-Background gradient. However, the result of the gradient contains more of the source colors, and less of the mixed colors, than when we use the mixing method above.

Mixing method versus gradient method

Next: Color Mixing Experiments

Vintage Colortone Effect

Here’s an original vintage postcard:

Original Vintage Postcard - Colorado National Monument (click to enlarge)

Detail of Linen Texture and Color

Here’s our final image made to mimic the Colortone look:

Final Colortone-style image

A Little History

The vintage postcard above of Colorado National Monument was printed by Curt Teich & Co. (Chicago). They used a color printing technique they called “C.T. Art-Colortone”. Until it closed in 1978, The Teich Company was the world’s largest printer of view and advertising postcards.

Vintage linen postcards have become prized by some collectors, and there’s even a book about them (see the link at the end of the tutorial.) The linen postcards usually portrayed landmarks, landscapes, and roadside attractions from photographs, but some were more illustrative. They were printed on a lithography press using color separation.

Beginning in the late 1940s, linen postcards fell out of fashion when polychrome printing was invented. However, Curt Teich still used the C.T. Art-Colortone technique on these smooth-surface “French Fold” postcards from 1951, below.

'French Fold' Postcard Set for Southwestern Oklahoma - 1951

Source Image

You may use my photograph below for this tutorial. If you want to use one of your own, try to find an image with a variety of color. Click on the image below to download the full-size photograph (309KB).

Giraffes at the San Francisco Zoo, © Dawn Pedersen

Step One: Make it Vivid

The Art-Colortone postcards have very strong colors but minimal detail. We’re going to increase the contrast and color saturation with a simple technique.

1. Open the picture in Photoshop and press Ctrl+J (Mac: Cmd+J) to copy the image to a new layer.
2. Double-click on the words “Layer 1″ in the Layers panel, and rename the layer as “Vivid”. Click OK (Go to Window > Layers if the Layers panel is not visible).
3. Change the Blend Mode for the Vivid layer to Overlay.

Set Duplicate layer to Overlay

4. With the Vivid layer selected, click on the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Select Levels.

Add a Level adjustment layer

5. In the Adjustments panel, move the center gray slider (gamma input) to the left ever so slightly. I set mine to 1.20.

Move gamma slider to the left

Step Two: Simplify It

With cheap inks comes a lack of detail. We need to blur some of the colors while keeping some black edge details. This will result in a slightly watercolor effect.

1. Make a copy of all the layers merged together: select the Levels adjustment layer at the top of the stack in the Layers panel, then press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Mac: Shift+Cmd+Opt+E).
2. Rename this new layer as Merged.

Copy of merged layers at top of stack

3. Right-click on the Merged layer and select Convert to Smart Object. We want to run a filter next without destroying pixels.
4. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 1.0 and click OK.

Gaussian Blur

5. With the Merged layer still selected, click on the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” icon again and select Threshold.
6. Set the blend mode for the new adjustment layer to Multiply.

Threshold adjustment layer set to Multiply

7. In the Adjustments panel, move the slider to the until there is only a small amount of black in the grassy areas. I set my slider to 71.

Adjust the Threshold slider

Next: Step Three: Edge Details

Color Wheel

1. Create a new file that is the same height and width. I went with 450px by 450px.
2. We need to place some guidelines halfway across and down in order to find the center of our document. Make the rulers visible by pressing Ctrl+R.
3. Click+drag a guide from the horizontal ruler down to the half-way mark. It should snap into place (in my case, at the 225px mark.) Do the same from the vertical ruler to place a vertical guide.

Place guides halfway across and down

4. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool from the Tools panel. We’re going to make a circle for the color wheel to fill.
5. Draw a circle in the image window. Give it a bit of space around it so it is not right up to the edges of the image window. Hold down the Shift key to get a perfect circle.

Circle selection

6. Select a Spectrum angle gradient:
   1. Click on the Gradient tool in the Tools panel. It may be hiding under the Paint Bucket tool.
   2. Click on the Angle Gradient icon in the Control panel.
   3. Click on the large gradient swatch to open the Gradient Editor.

Open the Gradient Editor

7. In the Gradient Editor, click on the Spectrum gradient, as shown below (it is one of the default gradients installed with Photoshop). Click OK.

Spectrum gradient

8. Decide where you want the red part of the color wheel to be. Let’s say we want it on the right.
9. Position your Gradient tool at the center of the image window, where the two guides intersect.
10. Click+drag from the center to the edge of the circle. Here we want red on the right, so drag to the right.
11. Hold the Shift key down while you drag to keep your angle at 90 degrees.

Drag the gradient

Gradient filled circle

12. Press Ctrl+H (Mac: Cmd+H) to hide the guides
13. Press Ctrl+D (Mac: Cmd+D) to deselect

That’s it!

Finished color wheel

If you have any questions or feedback, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Get an A+ in Photoshop

• imitate something from real life (e.g. how shadows and light really work, how glass and water bend light).
• guess with reasonable accuracy how a particular effect was created by someone else in Photoshop.
• troubleshoot your own errors as well as someone else’s.
• manipulate pixels non-destructively.
• work efficiently through the proper use of shortcuts, panels, actions, and tools.
• know how and when to use most of the features in Photoshop.

Here are the 10 things I recommend you do if you want to be a Photoshop expert.

#1: Own the latest version of Photoshop

It’s pretty hard to really experiment with Photoshop if you don’t have your own copy at home. Having the latest version is important too. Particularly with the last two versions, CS3 and CS4, new features are added all the time. These features usually either make your job easier (like the Adjustments panel), or give you tools that didn’t even exist in prior versions (like some of CS4′s 3D capabilities).

I do recommend you purchase your own copy. Please don’t used pirated stuff. If you are a teacher or student who is not using Photoshop for commercial purposes, you are allowed by Adobe to purchase the educational version at about half-price. It is as fully-featured as the non-educational version. You can usually buy this version at college book stores, or online at sites such as creationengine.com.

You are allowed to run your Photoshop software on two machines. I have one copy on my desktop PC and one on my laptop for travel.

#2: Play and Make Mistakes

Experimentation and play is the key to learning something beyond the basics. Try out all kinds of tools and filters, and see what they do with different settings. You can’t really ruin Photoshop. And if you do, you can reset all the defaults by closing Photoshop, then pressing and holding the Shift+Ctrl+Alt keys (Mac: Shift+Cmd+Opt) while Photoshop restarts.

Take a bunch of photos from your camera (or online) and throw them together. See how blend modes change an overall image as layers are moved around. Try all of the layer adjustments, and every filter combined with another filter. Don’t worry if it’s ugly. You’re learning. And there’s always the History panel to allow you to back up several steps and try something else.

#3: Take a Class

To be honest, I had an awful Photoshop teacher. He did little beyond schedule what we were supposed to complete in the textbook. I stopped going at one point. I had learned how not to teach, and four years later I was teaching Photoshop. What a good teacher can do is give you assignments you never dreamed you could do (and enjoy!) More importantly, a good instructor can give you personal guidance when you don’t even realize you made a mistake, or there’s a typo in the textbook, or you accidentally skipped something, and something goes wrong.

Finally, a good instructor will give you projects to do that give you real-world scenarios and specifications. This prepares you for making real money with Photoshop. Here are some projects I assigned my Photoshop and Illustrator students this year and last year.

#4: Go to Seminars

Kelby Training provides absolutely fantastic seminars all over the United States. I have had teachers such as the amazing Bert Monroy and Dave Cross. These seminars have increased my creativity and efficiency in Photoshop beyond belief. The day-long seminar is always fun and very inspiring. Go to one of these seminars if you can, or find something comparable in your area.

#5: Read Photoshop Magazines

Photoshop User Magazine from NAPP is the undisputed master when it comes to American Photoshop publications. You can find it for $10 at book stores, or you get an automatic subscription when you become a NAPP member. You will need that NAPP membership to access the tutorial files online. Each issue has a bunch of tutorials at all levels, plus reviews of products and news about the industry. The magazine caters to photographers, designers and hobbyists alike.

Layers Magazine is great too, but does not cater just to Photoshop users. It addresses almost all of the Adobe design products. It only has a couple of Photoshop tutorials per issue. If you work with Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, and Dreamweaver as well, this mag’s for you.

I also like to buy those really expensive ($15) imports from the U.K., such as Advanced Photoshop and Photoshop Creative. These can be found at book stores too. Unlike Photoshop User, they include a CD-Rom with every issue that provides all the resources for the tutorials, plus brushes, textures, and the like. These magazines sound like an awfully big expense at first, but they are so worth it. The tutorials are always very well done, and gorgeous to boot.

#6: Read Photoshop Books

Some Photoshop books out there are not so great, but most of them are really top-drawer. When considering a Photoshop book for purchase, look for three things:

• Are the images really beautiful or interesting? I have a book here I taught from before I really evaluated the images. They are bordering on ugly. Find a book that makes you feel like you can’t wait to create those images.
• Is the book written to your level? It can be really frustrating if the instructions are too easy or too hard for your experience level.
• Does the book match your learning style? Some books use blocks of text and others make each step into a bullet point. Some have more step-by-step images than others. Decide what works best for you and look for books written that way.

I do have three specific book recommendations. Each of the books below contains wonderful tutorials, and is written very well.

#7: Do Online Tutorials

I love doing online tutorials. Some good places to find Photoshop tutorials are PSD Tuts+, Good Tutorials, Pixel2Life, and Tutorialized. I also have some here. If you work with online tutorials enough, you find some favorite writers. Look for tutorials writers who provide enough images, proofread their work, and don’t leave steps out. You should be able to create a result that looks much like the one promised by following exactly what they have written. As with books, look for tutorials written to your skill level. But push yourself to do more challenging stuff than you’re used to.

#8: Be a Community Member

This can take many forms. Sometimes I like to check out online Photoshop forums and see if anybody needs a question answered. I often find cool ideas for myself as well. I also hang out on Twitter, and follow a large number of fellow graphic and Web designers. They are always feeding me new links to incredible online resources. I have RSS feeds I read from my favorite design blogs, and I comment on all of the articles that move me. I read everything by Smashing Magazine and Minervity.

There are design communities in the offline world too, of course. I am a member of the local group called ADAC. When I had more time a few years ago, I was even a board member. Real-world design clubs are a great opportunity to learn all about design in addition to some of the business aspects of freelancing (ADAC once had a great talk from an intellectual property attorney about copyright law for artists.) More importantly, you can come away inspired with fresh ideas by looking at the works of others.

#9: Learn Other Adobe Programs Too

Photoshop rarely works in a vacuum for most designers. There are many times when a Photoshop project is enhanced by the contributions of artwork done in Illustrator, for example.

Learn how to save your work for the press using Acrobat. Learn how to create vector artwork in Illustrator and import the paths into Photoshop. Learn how to place your Photoshop files into InDesign. Learn how various Photoshop plugins can expand your design horizons or make your work easier. These are but a few examples. A thorough understanding of Photoshop must include an understanding of how well it plays with others.

#10: Teach Photoshop

I wasn’t a Photoshop expert when I started teaching Photoshop. I am now, thanks in part to having taught it. Teaching Photoshop helped me develop my expertise in ways that no other experience can. When you have to communicate how to do something to someone else, you come to understand it in a way that sets it in concrete in your brain.

I often get my students to find something new to learn, and then have them turn around and teach it to another student. And when both students make mistakes during this teaching process, they both learn more. Writing tutorials – and finding out if someone can follow them – takes this concept step further.

Do you have any other ideas for building Photoshop expertise? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!

Final chicklet

This intermediate tutorial assumes that you already have these skills:

• creating and saving documents
• selecting and using tools
• viewing and using panels (palettes)
• working with gradients
• setting the layer opacity
• creating text

Below is a typical set of old school chicklets.

Old School Chicklets

Now here are some new school chicklets, which can be found at Mashable.

New School Chicklets

I was inspired by Mashable’s chicklets to make my own colorful versions in my BluLob sidebar.

My Chicklets

They take up more room, but boy are they attractive. A few well-placed and well-designed chicklets will have more impact than a giant cluster.

It helps to grab a copy of the original logo for whatever you link to. Let’s make a giant “f” chicklet like Mashable uses for Facebook.

Source File

Here’s a large Facebook logo. Click the image below to get the full-size verison:

Facebook Logo - click for a larger version

Part One: the Logo

We’re going to work with a nice, big image size so it is easy to work with. Later we’ll reduce its size for the Web. Starting with a large file gives us a lot of options when we want to make it smaller. Enlarging a small image = bad. Ensmalling a large image = good.

1. Open the Facebook logo in Photoshop.
2. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw a rectangle around just the letter “f”.

Copy the letter f

3. Press Ctrl+C (Mac: Cmd+C) to copy the pixels to your computer’s clipboard.
4. Start a new document that is 300px by 300px, 72 pixels/inch with a white background. Save the file.
5. Press Ctrl+V (Mac: Cmd+V) to paste the letter f on its own layer above the background. Name this layer “original f”

Paste the letter f

6. Use the Magic Wand tool to select the white pixels of the letter f.
7. Press Ctrl+J (Mac: Cmd+J) to copy the pixels to a new layer at the top. Name this layer “white f”.

Copy the white f to a new layer

8. Turn off visibility of the “original f” layer by clicking on the eye icon on its left edge.
9. Your white f probably has a blue fringe remaining around it. Make sure the “white f” layer is still active, and go to Layer > Matting > Defringe…
10. Enter a width of 1 pixel and click OK.

Defringe

11. Click on the fx symbol at the bottom of the layers panel and select Bevel and Emboss.
12. Use the following settings and click OK:
    • Style: Emboss
    • Technique: Smooth
    • Depth: 50%
    • Size: 2px
    • Direction: Down

Bevel and Emboss

13. We need to make the letter f bigger. Press Ctrl+T (Mac: Cmd: T) to enter the Transform mode.
14. Make the letter about 200 pixels tall (you can use the Info panel to see the H value). Hold the Shift key down while you drag from any corner of the transform box.
15. Leave space all around it, and room at the bottom for the text that will say “Facebook”. Press Enter (Mac: Return) to complete the transformation.

Transform mode

16. The edges look a tad blurry. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen…
17. Set the Amount 100%, the Radius to 20px, and click OK.

Sharpen

Next: the Chicklet

Vintage Hand-Tinted Postcard

This intermediate tutorial assumes that you already have the following skills:

• selecting and adjusting brushes
• picking a foreground color
• painting in the image window
• using the Eraser tool to erase pixels
• changing blend modes on the Layers panel
• using the Quick Selection tool to select pixels
• viewing and interacting with panels (palettes)

Introduction

Yesterday I found a gorgeous vintage postcard from Germany in a local antique mall. Let’s study some of the details that make this image haunting and beautiful, so that we can recreate the look in Photoshop with another, modern photo. Take a look at the real vintage postcard below.

Original Vintage Postcard

The overall color is a sepia tone. Individual areas were tinted by hand to create the blue, green and pink colors. The intensity of these colors depends on how much paint was on the artist’s brush, or how many times he or she painted over an area.

The foreground and background are blurred, while the figure and the rock she rests upon are in focus. The edges have a slightly “burnt” look. Upon close inspection, the image has a slight film grain to it. Finally, the card has picked up a couple of slight creases.

The first part of my tutorial will focus on creating a Sepia Tone effect. The second part will show you how to “hand-tint” the photo. The third part will show you how to give it an authentic, vintage look.

Here’s what our final image will look like (click for a larger version):

Final Image - click for a larger version

Source Files

I’ll be working with the following files, but of course this technique can work with other images. The first is a photo I located at iStock. You can download it for this tutorial. If you want to use if for other purposes, please purchase it here. I looked through hundreds of images, before finding one that had similar elements to the original postcard: a lovely lady gazing into a pond, a light-colored, soft dress, greenery, and flowers. Click on the image below to view and download the larger image:

Source Image - Click to view and download larger image

We will also use a creased, dirty cardboard texture to age the photo. I found this image at pokedstudio.com. I desaturated it, reduced its size, and flipped it around to fit our postcard. I also dodged the creases to make them stand out more. Click on the image below to view and download the larger image:

Cardboard - Click to view and download larger image

Part One: Sepia Toning

First, we will strip out the original colors and create a sepia tone effect..

1. Open the photo of the lady looking into a pond. Click on the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and select Black and White.

Add Black and White Adjustment Layer

2. In the Adjustments panel, select Lighter from the Black and White dropdown menu. You can leave the other default settings, or fiddle with them to get a black and white version you like.

Black and White - Lighter

3. Click on the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and select Hue/Saturation.

Add Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

4. In the Adjustments panel, enter the following settings:
   • Hue: 26
   • Saturation: 37
   • Lightness: -15
   • Click the “Colorize” checkbox.

Hue, Saturation and Lightness settings

Sepia Tone effect

Next: Part Two: Hand-Tinting Effect

Spot Color cat

What are Spot Colors?

Freesia Pantone 14-0852

Spot colors are made by mixing basic ink colors together in specific ratios using a formula guide. The formulas are usually assigned numbers, such as those of the Pantone® color system. Each spot color gets a separate plate. When colors overlap, the color underneath will either be knocked out or overprinted. When a color is knocked out, it will not be printed at all in the area underneath the second color. When a color is overprinted, both colors will be printed in that area. It’s usually a safe bet that black will safely overprint any ink. Because printers inks are translucent, this is not always the case with colors lighter than black. You may end up with a new combined color you didn’t want.

Prepare a Drawing for Spot Colors

There are many other uses for spot colors in Photoshop, but I’d like to demonstrate by creating my own drawing. You can do the same, or find an image you can trace over. You will need skill with the Pen tool for this particular technique (but not to use spot color). If you want to skip this part and get on with the spot colors, you can download the PSD file.

1. Create a new document. I set mine to 1000px by 1000px, with a white background color. If you are doing an image in all spot color, like I am, it does not matter what color mode you choose. If you are making an image with CMYK plus a spot color, choose CMYK.

New Document

2. Add a new layer and draw an image on it. I used the Pencil tool (located in the flyout menu for the Pen tool). This drawing is just a rough sketch for what we will draw with the Pen tool. This is my cat Athena.

Rough sketch on a new layer

3. Select the Pen tool. Up in the Control panel, click on the icon for Paths (not Shape layers).

Pen tool set to Paths

4. Draw your main outline based on your rough sketch. Think in terms of creating the largest shape which can be filled in with a block of solid color. This will create a new Work Path in the Paths panel (if you cannot see the Paths panel, go to Window > Paths.)

Draw the main outline

4. Double-click on the words Work Path in the Paths panel. Give the path a descriptive name. I named mine “cat shape” Click OK.

Rename the Work Path

5. In the Paths panel, click in the gray area below your new path. This will deselect the current path. We want to add new paths, not add to the existing one.

Deselect the current path

6. Create paths for the other main shapes. I drew around the eyes on one path, around the pupils on another path, and around the nose on the last path.

Create paths for remaining shapes

7. Again, deselect the paths.
8. Now draw path segments for the bits of black outlines we still need. HINT: To finish one line segment before beginning another one that does not connect to it, Ctrl+click (Mac: Cmd+click) somewhere in the image window away from your paths.
9. These segments should all go on the same path, because they will all be outlined in black.
10. Name the path.

Paths for the remaining outlines

11. Save your file.

Next: Creating Your First Spot Color

Dashed Line

Illustrator Dashed Line with Rounded Corners

1. Draw a line with the Pen tool.

Draw a line.

2. Open the Stroke panel (Window > Stroke).
3. Increase the Weight. I set mine to 10pt.

Increase the Weight.

4. Click the Dashed Line box to turn your line into a series of dashes.
5. Experiment with the widths of the Dash and the Gap in between dashes. I set my Dash to 20pt and the Gap to 15pt.

Dash and Gap

6. To get rounded corners on the dashes, click on the Round Cap icon. This made my dashes too close together, so I changed my Gap to 20pt.

Round Corner

Photoshop Part 1: Create a Custom Brush

1. Create a new 800px by 600px document with a white background. This file will be used just to create a custom brush.

New Document

2. Select the Rounded Rectangle tool from the Tools panel.

Rounded Rectangle tool

3. Set your foreground color to black by pressing D on your keyboard.

Black Foreground Color

4. Up in the Control panel, make sure that the tool is set to Shape layers.

Shape layers

5. Set the radius up pretty high. I set mine to 100px. This determines the degree of roundness at the corners. We’re going to draw one very large dash.

Radius of 100px

6. Draw a single huge dash with the Rounded Rectangle tool, in the middle of your image window.

Single Huge Dash

7. Press Ctrl+E (Mac: Cmd+E) to merge the shape layer onto the white background.

Merge Down

8. Edit > Define Brush Preset.

Define Brush Preset

8. Give your brush a name. You will see that the brush is very large. You get better quality images if you reduce the size of a very large brush, rather than increase the size of a brush that was drawn too small.
9. Click OK.

Name the Brush

10. Close the document. You don’t need to save it. Your brush is saved, which is all that matters.

Next page: Putting the Dash Brush into Action