Many times I have met requests for help with monograms, invitations, place cards and other printing things, which are in principle easy to do yourself, and for this you only need time and basic skills in Photoshop. If you go to professionals – it’s an additional cost, if you just go to the forum women – it’s a long, and not the fact that the result will be what you expect.
So I decided to write a little master-class for those who are not afraid to take up this pleasant job yourself?
So, let’s begin.
1. We installed Photoshop and launched it:
We can consider all the icons, buttons, crawl everywhere.
2. The next thing we have to do is to create a new file, where we will work.
At this stage, we can set the size and resolution of the image (for printing in the printer is better to do 300, as in the picture)
3. The main point to understand and remember is the Layer.
In Photoshop, everything is done in layers, like a sandwich. It’s all logical – layer on layer, what’s below overlaps what’s above.
4. If you want to make any changes, ALWAYS do it on a new layer! This way, you can always delete it without affecting the rest of the work.
So, we created a new layer that’s transparent. I dragged the background image from the Images pile onto it. In order to fill our entire sheet with the background, we create a duplicate of the layer with the image and drag the layer appeared in the desired place
5. We’ve made several duplicate layers with the background, and lined them up under each other. To make the work easier and to avoid getting tangled in a pile of layers, we merge them (that is, we merge the visible layers – we should have the eye on the left of the needed layers and the one we are not touching – the lowest white layer – we turn off the eye there) and now we can safely make another duplicate of that one layer, drag it to the right and merge again – and get the layer with the background.
6. We have the general background, now we need to add various decorative and informative elements. To do this symmetrically, let’s include a grid
7. Let’s draw a circle in the center of the picture.
To do this, select the shape tool in the left panel, choose there a circle, and stretch it to the desired size.
8. Just a blue circle is boring. Right-click on his layer and find Blending Options.
9. Let’s make a clear outline by tracing.
There’s a lot more you can do in blending options – experiment!
10. Now let’s add some text. We choose the icon with the letter T (the panel on the left), choose the desired area, enter the text, select the font, color and size.
I don’t have a standard font. I can tell you where to get them and how to install, if interesting.
11. if it happens that we are too lazy to edit the text, and it is easier to do it all over again (or we just don’t need it), right-click and choose Delete Layer
That’s why we do everything on different layers!
12. Back to our circle. Let’s make it semi-transparent.
Blending Options – move the opacity slider to the desired value
13. If we decide to make a monogram, there is nothing easier. We print two capital letters of large size, and select the desired font.
Again, the font is not standard.
You can make each letter separately and rotate them with each other – location, slope, etc.
14. We need to decorate our monogram. We create a new layer, choose a nice brush and click on the layer.
You can do a lot of things with this layer. You can move it to the background, change the size, color, etc.
15. I dragged the layer with the brush under the circle, filled it with a dark color, added a shadow, changed the shape and size. After that, I made a duplicate of the layer with the circle, reduced its size by 10% and slightly reduced the thickness of the stroke.
You can do something else.
16. We have the picture, now we have to make the back of the card – with the text itself.
Removing the “eye” (visibility) from all layers except our background and create a shape Rectangle with rounded edges (I did this by turning on the grid to make everything even, which I advise you to do).
17. Write the text of the invitation.
At this point, we can finish the job and save our invitation with two files – one will be the side with the text, the other will be the side with the picture. Just put visibility on the layers we want, select the file – save as. Save it in JPG or PNG.