Photo Frame with Embossed Texture

Final image Step 1. Throughout the tutorial I’ll be insetting my layers palette into the frame. (*note: I’ve obviously had to shrink my actual image to fit the space inside the tutorial, so I’ll add a zoomed area when needed.)
2
Since the color of this background pattern isn’t all that festive lets go ahead and implement phase 1 of the our color shift. Open up a new Hue / Saturation adjustment layer by clicking on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (it’s the half black - half white circle), set the Hue to 0, the Saturation to 15 and the Lightness at around -19. Make sure the Colorize checkbox is checked and click OK. I always like to make these sorts of adjustments as Adjustment layers incase I need to tweak them later.
3
The second step of the color shift is next, again with an adjustment layer. This time, we’ll use curves to increase the contrast and vibrancy of the pattern. Add a Curves adjustment layer, dragging both the white and black endpoints toward the center as shown below.
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In order to create the 3D edges of the texture we need a way to define the edges. If you’ve got the time, feel free to trace every little line on your own, but if you’re like me, you’d probably prefer a little shortcut right? … yeah, I knew it, you big slacker! Ok, lets start by creating a new layer at the top of the document, press Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to Select All, then copy everything at once by either choosing Edit>Copy Merged, or by using the keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-C (PC: Ctrl-Shift-C). Then just past it all onto the new layer by pressing Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V). Yeah, I know YOU all know these shortcuts, but I’ll mention them incase a few determined noobs might have made it this far. Oh, and I know that one of you clowns will inevitably make some comment about why I didn’t just use the Apply Image function here… so let me just say I do it this way because it’s faster, the end result is the same and I can do it with a few quick strokes of the keyboard. You’ll notice nothing visible has changed, but that the entire adjusted pattern is now living on your new layer. No need to name it because we’ll just delete it in a minute.
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Now that we’ve got the merged layer onto a new layer lets go to work on it. First lets desaturate the layer by pressing Command-Shift-U (PC: Ctrl-Shift-U). With the layer desaturated we want to get it as close to just black and white as possible, which we’ll do in two steps. We’ll start with Levels, so press Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L) to bring up the Levels dialog box and then drag the black and white point markers towards the middle until they are at their respective edges of the histogram as shown below.
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To complete the isolation of the blacks and whites we’ll use the Levels function a second time by pressing Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L) and this time we’ll drag the sliders together. The idea here is to drag the white (right) slider to the left until the whites are pure white, then pull the black (left) slider to it. If you simply enter the numbers I’ve entered below the histogram, you’ll get my exact result without having to do your own guesswork.
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Now all we need to do is isolate just the black, and for this I love using Channels. First, select the entire canvas by pressing Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A), then Cut everything from this layer by pressing Command-X (PC: Ctrl-X). Switch over to the Channels palette (which should be a tab inside your Layers palette, but if not, simply choose Window>Channels from the Main Menu to access it). Create a new channel by clicking the Create New Alpha Channel icon at the bottom of the Channels palette (it looks like a page with it’s corner turned back). Then simply Paste the layer content we just Cut by pressing Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V).
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Invert the contents of the Channel by pressing Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I), this will essentially swap the black and white areas. Now lets select the contents of this Channel (the now white bits) by holding the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and clicking on the thumbnail for this Channel in the Channels Palette.
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Now that we’ve got the selection made, click on the RGB channel to switch back to the standard Channel configuration and then switch back to the Layers palette where the layer we just Cut from should still be the active layer. Press the D key to reset the foreground color to black, then simply fill the selection with it by pressing Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace). You can now deselect by pressing Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D), and while we’re here, lets go ahead and rename this layer 3D. Yes, the whole thing should now look like crap, but don’t worry, we’ll fix that in the next step.
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For the 3D effect to work, we’ll first lower the layer’s Fill to 0% in the Layers palette, then add the following Bevel and Emboss Layer Style by Command-Clicking (PC: Right-Clicking) on the layer in the Layers palette and choosing Blending Options from the menu. Now just select Bevel and Emboss from the list at the left and enter the following settings.
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Because we lowered the layer’s Fill to 0%, the effects can be added to a layer without any of its actual pixels being visible, allowing us to overlay the Bevel and Emboss layer style onto our pattern as shown below in the before and after versions of the effect.
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Now it’s time to add our photo. I’ll use this lovely family I found at iStockPhoto.com. If you’re using CS3 or higher you can Place the image as a smart object by choosing File>Place from the Main menu, but in the interest of backward compatibility lets just say that you’re going to open your photo in Photoshop, select the photo by pressing Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A), copy the photo by pressing Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C), and then switch back to your working document where you’ll Paste the photo into the file by pressing Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V). At the point feel free to close the photo file. If you’re photo is too large, this would be the time to resize it using Free Transform. Simply press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to invoke the Free Transform tool and then click and drag the corners of the photo while holding down the Shift key to constrain the photo’s proportions. When your transformation is complete, hit the Return (PC: Enter) key to commit it and rename the layer Photo.
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Since we’re going for a photo frame effect, I think it’d be nice to round the corners of the image a little. For this we’ll use the Rounded Rectangle tool to create a path, then we’ll convert the path to a selection and add a layer mask. Begin by grabbing the Custom Shape tool by pressing the U key, make sure the Rounded Rectangle option is selected from the Options bar across the top of Photoshop and that the Paths option is selected as well. Set the corner radius to 20px and click and drag a rounded rectangular path where the photo area of the frame should live (this should be the size of your newly resized photo or a touch smaller).
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Next we’ll convert the path to a selection by pressing Command-Return (PC: Ctrl-Enter). You’ll know it’s been converted to a selection because the thin line of the path will now appear as the "marching ants" of an active selection. Now that we’ve got the selection made, just click on the Add Layer Mask icon (it’s the one that looks like a black circle inside a white rectangle) at the bottom of the Layers palette to convert the selection to a layer mask.
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Lets now add some Layer Styles to the Photo layer that will really start to bring things together. Let me explain what we’ll be doing. Outer Glow: By changing the color to black and the blend mode to Linear Burn we can add a dark shadow around the perimeter of the photo opening which will give the frame depth. Inner Glow: We’ll also change the color of the Inner Glow to black and the blend mode to Normal. This will give shading around the inner perimeter of the photo. Stroke: A 4px Stroke set to 0% Opacity ads the inner lip to the opening. Double Click on the Photo layer to bring up the Layer Styles dialog box (Or Command-Click (PC: Right-Click) on the layer and choose Blending Options), and add the following three layer styles. Be careful to check each and every setting as many have been changed from the default values.
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If you followed along successfully, your file should be looking like the one below… if not, then get yourself back to Step 15 and do it again!
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Lets add just a little more dimension to the photo opening. Create a new layer below the Photo layer and call it Opening Edge. Load the layer mask of the Photo layer as a selection by holding down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and clicking on the layer mask. Make sure your new Opening Edge layer is the active layer in the Layers palette and then fill the selection with any color your little heart desires… except purple of course. Then simply lower the layer’s Fill to 0% and add the following Bevel and Emboss Layer Style.
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Again, if you followed along successfully, your file should resemble mine. Notice the depth that was added to the top and left edges of the photo opening.
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Lets add one more of these invisible layers with layer styles right above the Pattern layer called Frame Effects. Fill the entire layer with foreground color by pressing Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to Select All, and then by pressing Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the selection with color. Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect, drop the Fill to 0% and add the following Inner Glow (set to black again) to add depth to the outside edge of the frame, followed by a Satin effect in white to add highlights.
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Which will bring us to to our finished product. I hope you’ve had a little fun and were able to learn something along the way about using Channels to isolate tone and create selections, and how you can use layers with a 0% Fill opacity to add Layer Styles in situations where such effects wouldn’t be possible otherwise. I added a little metal plate to the front of the frame which of course isn’t covered in this lesson but since it’s become a tradition for me to mess with you by throwing in polishing elements without an explanation, I figured I’d keep with tradition here as well.

NOTE : ALL CREDITS FOR THE ORIGINAL TUTORIAL MAKER :)

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=== For more tutorials keep visiting ;) ===
= http://photoshop-manic.blogspot.com =
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Create a Movie Quality DVD Cover

How to Create a Movie Quality DVD Cover Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Create a new document with dimensions; 1000x1415px then go here and copy this image then paste it into your document and scale it to fit the full page.

Step 2

We're going to add a bit of disruption in the water so copy this image then paste it into your document then go Image>Adjustments>Desaturate then just scale an move the image until you have something that resembles the image shown below.

Step 3

Change the blend mode of this layer to overlay.

Step 4

Obviously we don't want the peoples heads showing at the front and we want the sky and water to blend in. First add a layer mask to the layer with the explosion on it by clicking the layer mask button at the bottom of the layers panel. Select the brush tool and choose a 125px soft round brush then set the brush opacity to 20% in the main toolbar. Make sure the foreground color is set as black and the layer mask is selected. Now just brush around the parts that you want to hide so brush over the edges of the image first to soften them then over the people and brush over the water a bit to get it to blend. Keep brushing until you get something similar to the image below, if you feel you've brushed to much then just change the foreground color to white then that should unhide the parts that you now brush over.

Step 5

Now if you've already gone through part one of the tutorial then copy the layers from that tutorial straight into this document; if you have both documents open then you can just select all the layers from the plane document (except the background) and drag them into this document. If you haven't completed the previous tutorial then you can just use the undestroyed version of the plane which you can find here. Either way just scale and position it until you get something that you like.

Step 6

Now change the blend mode of the plane layer to multiply, if you followed the previous tutorial you may have already done this.

Step 7

Change the foreground color to black then select the gradient tool then click the drop down arrow in the main toolbar and select the second gradient which should go from transparent to opaque black, if not then just make a custom gradient like this. Make sure the gradient type is set at linear then hold Shift and drag from the bottom of the document up to about the middle of the wing and you should get something like the image below.

Step 8

Change the blend mode of this layer to soft light.

Step 9

Duplicate this layer and change the opacity to 75% and the blend mode to multiply. We did it in this way so we can have the image fade to black at the bottom but still preserve the color saturation of the image; this is a good one to remember. We darkened the bottom of the image for two reasons; firstly to draw the focus away from the dock which stood out too much and secondly so we place our text here and it will stand out.

Step 10

We're going to go for a really cliche movie font, Trajan; used on more than half of all movie posters since 2000. Trajan is overused but we're going to use it here because we're not aiming for originality anyway. Select the type tool then click somewhere in the document then type 'the' and change the size to 40pt, the font to Trajan/Trajan Pro and the color to white. Now move the text to just below the guy like in the image below.

Step 11

Now select the type tool again and click in the document then type 'PlanE' (note the uppercase/lowercase characters) and change the size to 180pt, I also changed the size of the 'E' to 170pt as it looked to big. The last thing that you need to do is to change the tracking (horizontal character spacing) of some of the letters to even it out. DO this by going Window>Character and highlighting one letter at a time and changing the tracking until it looks balanced and 'symmetrical'. Now move it to where it looks good.

Step 12

Right click on the plane text layer and go to blending options and add a drop shadow and an inner bevel using the settings shown below.

Step 13

We want to add some soft vignetting now, which means darkening the edges of the image. You could do this with a gradient but here we're going to brush it on because we don't want it symmetrical and you have more control if you do it this way. So first create a new layer then grab a soft round brush with a size of about 150px and an opacity of about 10% then set the foreground color to black. Now just brush round the top corners (the bottom ones are dark enough) make sure you don't brush over the plane and keep doing this until your image resembles the one shown below.

Step 14

Most movie posters contain some credits and most of them use extremely compressed type. Basically here what you want to do is to type in your text and center justify it, it doesn't really matter what font you are using but set the color to something like #39362d. Now to compress it go Window>Character to bring up the character editor again then highlight the text and adjust the character width as shown in the image below.

Step 15

Now add some more text, I added the names of some actors at the top and a website at the bottom and just kept it pretty simple.

Step 16

I added a curves adjustment layer by clicking the button at the bottom of the layers panel. Next just go through each channel and alter the curves slightly, the main thing I did was to lower the amount of blue in the image. Try to get your curves looking like the image shown below.

Step 17

I also felt the flames were not bright enough so I fixed this in two steps. First add a levels adjustment layer and drag the black slider in to about 35 and the white slider in to about 225; this will brighten our image a bit as well as raise the saturation.

Step 18

You'll notice that the flames look awesome now but the rest of the image is a bit off so we're now going to mask off the adjustment layer. This time hold Alt and click on the layer mask button in the layers panel and this will create a layer mask and fill it black so this adjustment layer is fully hidden now. Select the brush tool and choose a 30px soft round brush with an opacity of about 20% then set the foreground color to white. Now select the layer mask and just paint over the flames a few times and you will notice that when you paint over them they will become brighter as what we are doing is unhiding the adjustment layer in these parts.

Conclusion

To finish this tutorial off I thought I'd point you to a great PSD file of a DVD case, you can download it it here. What I did was saved my image as a jpeg then pasted the jpeg image into the DVD case document and this shows you roughly how the cover will look. This is optional but it's the kind of thing that would be useful if you were to present a DVD cover design to a client. You can see what mine looked like below

NOTE : ALL CREDITS FOR THE ORIGINAL TUTORIAL MAKER :)

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=== For more tutorials keep visiting ;) ===
= http://photoshop-manic.blogspot.com =
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