The Photoshop Guru's Handbook - "Creating the NUI" Part 2 - Nutz & Bolts (mini Interface project) There are roughly 32 Steps to this excercise. But who's counting! :?)> Please follow these steps closely & presicely, and everything should work out fine. Do not rush. And do not bother naming the layers or you may get lost. Preparations: Create a New Document. Width=300 pixels, Height=200 pixels, Resolution=72, Mode=RGB, Contents=White Layer 1 a ) Create a new layer. b ) Use the rectangle selection tool and draw a selection as close as you can to the center of the canvas. Make it 200 pixels wide by 100 pixels high. It can be a little more or less, it won't matter. c ) Fill the selection with black. d ) Switch to the Channels Palette. Click on the square icon with the white circle in it. ('save selection as channel' - should be the 2nd icon from the left). You should now see a black channel with a white rectangle in it that is selected. e ) Now go up to the Select menu and choose Modify/Border/set to 6 pixels. Click OK to apply. f ) Apply Gaussian Blur to your selection with this setting: 250 (maximum). TIP: You may want to notice here that using the maximum blur amount will create an extremely sharp beveled edge effect. You'll see the results better after we apply the Lighting Effects filter. And if you want a larger, or wider bevel, just make the border size of your selection larger. (it couldn't GET any easier could it! ;?)>) g ) Return to the layers palette and click on Layer 1. Layer 2 a ) Create a New layer. b ) Fill the entire layer with a dark grey. Use these RGB settings: 51,51,51. If you're using the 216 web safe palette, this is the darkest grey in the palatte. c ) Open the Lighting effects filter, and look in the list for the light style i had you download before we began. Remember it's called Reflections. When you've found it, go to the Texture Channel list box at the bottom of the filter and load channel #4 (PS 5+ users will see Alpha 1). Don't alter any of the other settings, they're already set for you. Click OK to apply the filter. d ) Now hold the Ctrl key down [Command for Mac] and click on Layer 1. e ) Invert the selection [Ctrl + Shift + I], and hit the Delete key. DESELECT (Ctrl+D). f ) You may not be able to see it, but as a result of the way we blurred our channel before we now have a 1 pixel white border around our image. So to get rid of that, we simply use the Defringe filter with a setting of 1 pixel. Do that now. (Layer/Matting/Defringe) g ) Now 'Ctrl + click' on Layer 2 to select it's contents. ![]() Layer 3 a ) Create a New layer. b ) Go to the Select menu and choose Modify/Contract. Enter 8 as the amount. Apply it. c ) Set your foreground colour to White and background to Dark Grey. Fill the selection with a Linear Gradient from top to bottom. TIP: Holding the Shift key at the same time will ensure your gradient is straight. This applies to any 'directional' tool; such as the line tool & Lasso tool. e ) Set this layer's Blend mode to Overlay. DO NOT DESELECT. To the Top Back to "Nutz & Bolts" - Page 1 - |
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