The object of this tutorial is to
make a grosgrain ribbon in Photoshop CS2. Most of these steps will work in
previous versions, but known differences will be noted.
This tutorial uses:
Shapes Tool
Filter Gallery
Layer Styles Palette
Start with a new image: 3 inches
wide, 12 inches high, 300DPI. This size allows you to make the ribbon at a width
of your choosing. You may also do the following steps directly in your layout,
on a separate layer.
Using the rectangle tool, with the
“fill pixels” option, draw a tall rectangle on your image. (We are going to
apply a filter in the following steps, and since a shape layer cannot have a
filter applied, we use the “fill pixels” choice.) The rectangle I created was
approximately ½ inch by 12, and I chose two colors that are light and dark in
the same hue.
Your image should be vertical.
Next we are going to apply the
halftone filter, which is located here:
Filter>Sketch>Halftone Pattern. This
will open up the Filter Gallery, which was new in Photoshop CS. (The filter is
still available in earlier versions but will not open the Filter Gallery.)
When the Filter Gallery is open you
will make the adjustments to give your image the lines of the grosgrain ribbon.
The following image shows the setting used for the tutorial, but you can adjust
them to your liking. The contrast will make the lines more defined when the
slider is to the right, and blurry when to the left. You will be able to see
your image change on the left as you adjust the settings.
In order for our ribbon to look a
little more realistic, we are also going to add a little bit of texture while we
are in the Filter Gallery. (**Note: for older Photoshop versions, you will just
add the following steps separately using the Filter>Texture>Texturizer choice
after you’ve applied the halftone.)
On the very bottom of the right
column are two icons. One icon is to add another filter, and the trash can icon
to delete a filter. Click on the left icon to add another filter.
This will duplicate the halftone, so
you then use the middle column to browse to the texture folder and click on
texturizer. The following screenshot shows the settings used for the tutorial
for adding texture. When you have made your choices for your settings, click OK
to apply the filters and return to the normal work area.
The last step will be to add a little
style to the ribbon using the styles palette, which will make the ribbon look
more realistic. Let’s start with some Bevel & Emboss. On the below screenshot
you can see the settings I used. The size has been lowered to 2 and the depth to
31%. This gives just a bit of dimension without making it look too blocky. The
Highlight color was changed from white to the lighter of the two colors we
started with, and the style type was changed to Emboss. Some additional texture
was added under the Bevel & Emboss and the insert shows those settings. The
pattern is one from the default patterns in CS2, Textures2, called Weave 5, but
you can use any pattern you like.
Next a Gradient Overlay was applied
with the gradient used being the default foreground/background so it uses the
same colors we started with. The style was changed to Reflected. No other
changes from default were made.
Lastly, a stroke was added. The
lighter color was used, with the size changed to 16 and the position changed to
Inside.
Here are the samples made from this
tutorial. The left ribbon is without the texture step in the Bevel & Emboss
settings in the layer styles palette, and the right ribbon is with pattern
texture added. It is very subtle but does add a little realism.
Experiment with the settings to get a
variety of ribbons. Enjoy making ribbons and if you have any questions regarding
this tutorial, please post them in the Photoshop section of the forum.
