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Last Updated:
Jan 20th, 2007 - 12:55:03 |
Do you love the look of embossed cardstock in paper scrapped layouts and wish you could recreate it digitally? You can…and it’s incredibly easy to do!
In this tutorial we will create a PS Style to imitate dry embossing on a gift tag and save the custom style asa preset in the Styles palette for future use.
1. We’ll begin by opening a file containing a blank Kraft tag in Photoshop.
2. Set your foreground color (in the Tools palette) to a medium shade of grey.
3. Select your Text tool from the Toolbox palette and choose a font. Dingbat fonts work beautifully for dry embossing. I’m using “Carr Christmas” here which can be downloaded at the Dingbat Depot http://www.dingbatdepot.com/ along with a vast collection of other dingbat fonts.
Here is our tag in progress with a line of dingbats typed across the bottom in the medium grey color. My font size is set to 60 point.
4. Make sure that the text layer you just added is selected in your Layers palette. Click on the “Add a Layer Style” icon at the bottom of your Layers palette. Choose “Bevel and Emboss” from the pop up menu.
5. In the dialog box that appears, drag the Highlight Opacity slider to 100% and lower the Shadow Opacity slider to 50%.
6. Again being sure that your text layer is selected in the Layers palette, lower the opacity of the layer to about 75% and set the fill to 0%.
7. The grey fill inside of the dingbat font will disappear, but the bevel and emboss effect will remain as shown below.
8. Right click on text layer and choose “Copy Layer Style” from the drop down menu.
9. Click on the layer containing the tag to select it and then click on the text tool again. Leave your foreground color set to the medium grey. We’re going to add some lettering to the tag. I used Times New Roman at 30 point and added the phrase “Happy Holidays” to the top of the tag.
10. Right click on the new “Happy Holidays” text layer and choose “Paste Layer Style” from the drop down menu.
11. The dry emboss effect is now applied to the “Happy Holidays” phrase as well as the dingbats on the bottom of the tag.
You can save your dry emboss effect as a custom style which will be available to you in the Styles palette in the future by following these steps:
1. Select one of the text layers with the dry emboss effect applied to the text.
2. Choose Window > Styles to open your Style Palette.
3. Click on the right facing arrow at the top of the Styles Palette to open the drop down menu and choose “New Style.”
4. Type a name for the style in the dialog box that appears and click O.K.
NOTE: It’s a good idea to save your custom styles as a library by following these steps so that they don’t “disappear” forever when you replace the open styles in the future.
Choose Save Styles from the Styles palette menu.
Choose a location for the style library, enter a file name, and click Save.
You can save the library anywhere. However, if you place the library file in the Presets/Styles folder inside the Photoshop program folder, the library name will appear at the bottom of the Styles palette menu when you restart the application.
You can also use the Preset Manager to rename, delete, and save libraries of preset styles.
The possibilities for applying embossing to your layouts are endless. Try embossing a border across the top of a page, or creating an embossed strip to use as a decorative element. An embossed monogram can add a touch of elegance to a bare corner that “needs something.” Use your imagination and enjoy dry embossing digitally!
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